England's Rugby League World Cup campaign has seemingly ended despite a win - and in a whimper.

Barring a sporting miracle, England can start packing for home despite posting a 34-12 victory over Papua New Guinea in Wollongong on Friday night.

Under the complex tournament format, Brian McDermott's team needed at least a 69-point win to be sure of scraping into the semi-finals.

Now England need Tonga to thrash Samoa by 47 points or more in the fierce Pasifika derby at the same venue on Sunday night.

Given Samoa pumped Tonga 34-6 in last year's Pacific Championships, such a result seems most improbable.

England have only themselves to blame for landing in such a precarious, seemingly hopeless, position.

After losing 30-12 to Tonga in their tournament opener, then not quite atoning with a 82-0 thrashing of France to keep their semi-finals hopes flickering, England made a promising enough start at WIN Stadium.

Realistically needing to score close to a point a minute to apply the pressure on Samoa and Tonga, England were on track after racing to a 22-0 lead after 20 minutes through tries to Matty Ashton, AJ Brimson, Dom Young and Harry Smith.

But then they imploded, making endless errors in pursuit of more points under pressure.

Instead of going on with the job, after leading 24-0 at the break following a 40th-minute penalty goal to Sydney Roosters star Hugo Savala, England completely unravelled.

PNG tries to Dudley Dotoi and Gairo Voro in the opening 10 minutes of the second half piled the pressure on the English - and they crumbled with error after error.

A desperate try in the penultimate minute to Mikey Lewis was little more than an academic consolation for England.