RLWC recap: Tonga down spirited Lebanon as Samoa women demolish Wales

That wraps up our live coverage of the rugby league world cup for tonight.

Tonight’s matches were pretty much fizzers unfortunately, but that’s the joys of the group stages of the world cup.

We’ll be back tomorrow though for another full day of action.

Saturday’s RLWC schedule (All times AEDT)

1.15pm | Fiji v PNG (women)

3.25pm | PNG v Samoa (men)

5.35pm | England v France (men)

8.05pm | Australia v England (women)

Sione Katoa scored the opener for the night, and book ended it with a second in the 79th minute.

Tonga the victors 36-0.

Those couple of late tries probably blew the score out a little bit more than the Cedars deserved, but it was still a sensational performance from Tonga.

If it wasn’t already over, it most certainly is now.

Like they did in the first half, Lebanon’s defence had stood up for a while, but the relentlessness of the Tongan attack was finally able to break through.

And again, it ended up looking easier than it probably was.

Leka Halasima was the man who got the choccies.

Having gone 1/4, Paul Alamoti has given up kicking duties to Tuimoala Lolohea, who nailed it.

Well that was exactly the start to this second half the Cedars didn’t want – conceding a try.

Jojo Fifita finally has his try – he was denied earlier – after scoring in the corner.

This one was a bit harder at least – he had to really stretch to get it down in the corner before the Lebanon defence arrived.

Tonga has gone into the break 14-0 up after Tolutau Koula scored an absolute stunner in the last couple of minutes.

The Cedars had to that point looked as if they were fighting back, but Koula pounced on a kick that had been batted back by Jason Saab, and that was all she wrote – he ran 95 metres to score down the other end.

“If there is one man on the field who you do not want to get that ball to, it’s this man ... absolutely lightning,” Luke Keary said in commentary for Seven.

Tonga are now 10-0 up, and there are some concerns now for the Cedars.

Two tries have gone down the right same right side -- they had a massive overlap and Paul Alamoti was able to literally trot over the line, and he still had Katoa on his outside.

Jojo Fifita on the other wing just had one overturned by the Bunker, who ruled a Tolu Koula dropped ball in the lead up was knocked on.

The opening 20 minutes of this clash have been thrilling, and it’s Tonga that has finally broken the deadlock through Sione Katoa.

One of the best finishers in the NRL, Katoa got the ball on the 30m line and still had a lot of work to do to get over the line, but he made it look easy.

There’s a HUGE Tonga contingent down that end of CommBank Stadium too and they all absolutely lit up.

Paul Alamoti is on goal-kicking duties, and he wasn’t able to bring this one back far enough and misses it inside the near post.

Lebanon and Tonga are walking onto CommBank Stadium, and the crowd has swelled significantly for this one.

Hard to tell who’s who in the stands, given both teams play in red.

Tonga for this match will be wearing their white jerseys.

Well that was a thrashing in every sense of the word.

Having been beaten 40-0 last weekend by the Jillaroos, Samoa bounced back to beat Wales 76-0.

10 different try-scorers, eight players with over 100 running metres, 1708 run metres to 484, 66 per cent of possession, 20 linebreaks to nil, 17 offloads to nil, and just six missed tackles to 61.

On debut, Tyra Ekepati scored a hat-trick, while Destiny Mino-Sinapati and Mercedez Taulelai-Siala scored doubles.

"We wanted to come out here and make a statement, and I'm really proud of the effort the girls put in tonight," Samoa skipper Evania Isa'ako said on Seven's coverage.

Samoa have continued this second half exactly as they did the first, and they're going to absolutely smash their old highest-score out of the water.

They now lead 56-0 with 18 minutes still to play. Their old record was 52-0 against Russia at the last World Cup.

It's an absolute training drill on CommBank Stadium.

Make that 60-0 – Mercedez Taulelei-Siala has just run 30m to score another one.