Rugby League World Cup: Fiji 30-14 Scotland - Bravehearts out in group phase

Scotland's exit from the Rugby League World Cup was confirmed by a 30-14 loss to Fiji at Kingston Park, Newcastle.

The Bravehearts required a improbable win by more than 65 points to stand any chance to reaching the quarter-finals.

Lachlan Walmsley, Ben Hellewell and Bayley Liu scored tries for a Scotland side missing key players to injury.

Fiji's win means they are almost certain to qualify as Group B runners-up behind Australia, and therefore play New Zealand in the last eight.

The two nations met at the same stage of the 2017 tournament, with Fiji upsetting the Kiwis in a low-scoring contest in Wellington.

Australia remain top of Group B on points difference and are expected to beat Italy (19:30 BST kick-off) in their final match to secure first position.

• Relive Fiji's win over Scotland as it happened

• World Cup fixtures, results and BBC coverage times

Scotland's elimination was all but confirmed after heavy defeats by Italy and Australia in their first two group games and their wait for a first World Cup victory since 2013 goes on.

However, there were positives to take from a display full of endeavour against a Fiji team that have reached the semi-finals in each of the past three World Cups.

Walmsley's interception and length-of-the-field try got Scotland on the scoreboard after they had conceded early tries to Taniela Sadrugu and Viliame Kikau.

Henry Raiwalui and Maika Sivo were Fiji's scorers either side of half-time but they were unable to stretch clear of the Bravehearts, with Hellewell and Liu keeping Scotland's deficit at 10 points.

Korbin Sims powered over for the final points of an increasingly bad-tempered second period which saw Walmsley, Kikau and Scotland's Luke Bain all sent to the sin bin.

Fiji interim coach Wise Kativerata: "We've got to look at how we performed this week as a coaching staff. We know we've got the team to play New Zealand, we've just got to go Monday, switch on and turn it on, we train and work towards New Zealand.

"We can take the momentum, we've got a lot of upside in our squad. When you look at the squad we've got the younger squad, so when we play our style of football our energy goes up, everything goes up."

Scotland head coach Nathan Graham: "I'm proud of that performance. We needed it as a group and when we've dug really deep this week and come up with that I think everyone should be really proud of it.

"It's disappointing to be knocked out the tournament. On the flip side of that we talked about all week putting a performance together against one of the better nations in this World Cup and I thought we did that today.

"We lost quite a few senior players through injury building up to the game, so to come up with a performance that's rattled Fiji tonight, I think we've done ourselves proud."

Fiji: Turuva; Karawalevu, Naiqama, Valemei, Sivo; Raiwalui, Wakeham; Vuniyayawa, Koroisau, Sims, Kikau, Wong, Sadrugu.

Interchanges: Tagituimua, Toloi, Ratuvakacereivalu, Manuel-Liolevave.

Scotland: Dixon; Walmsley, Liu, Buchanan, Russell; Bell, Gahan; Teanby, Schneider, Luckley, Hellewell, Linnett, Bain.

Interchanges: Bayliss-Brow, Graham, Ferguson, Emslie.