The Cook Islands are behind newly adopted rugby league national team eligibility rules to support small nations to have a larger pool of players at their disposal to pull on the jumper.

Among a sweep of announcements made by the game's global governing body on Monday, International Rugby League chair Troy Grant said a submission from the Cook Islands helped inform the decision to expand eligibility criteria to three generations.

A player having a great grandparent born in a country is enough to qualify them to play for the national side.

Details surrounding the planned format and location of the 2030 Rugby League World Cup were also announced.

Following their appearances in the men's semi finals at the weekend, Samoa and Tonga are expected to be promoted to Tier 1 nations in the sport.

The Cook Islands are the least populated nations represented at this year's tournament by some margin, with its resident population in 2025 shy of 20,000 people, per its Government's Statistics Office.

They went 0-3 in their campaign facing Fiji and men's finalists Australia and New Zealand in Pool A.

Their coach Karmichael Hunt had made the call for broader eligibility following a proud effort from his side.

"We all live in Australia or New Zealand," Hunt said last week, AAP reports.

"There are a lot of great-grandparents that have Cook Islands kids playing in good systems in Queensland and NSW and we'd love to get access to those and hopefully we can get a decision in our favour.

"If you want to identify and represent your Cook Island heritage and you have got that in your blood you should have the right to do that."

The IRL board has agreed to expand qualification criteria to great-grandparents to represent nations of heritage, with a 'detailed submission from Cook Islands given their small population of less than 20,000 and the movement of Cook Islanders to larger countries for work, study or other purposes' prompting the change, per the IRL on Monday.

"We have made a number of other decisions at Board level with the absolute intent of just growing the player pool across Wheelchair and Women's formats to help the game continue to grow," Mr Grant said.

"The IRL Board had a lengthy discussion in regards to the application from Cook Islands and the Board has resolved to change eligibility for all three forms of the game for every nation to great grandparent.

"We did a lot of analysis and looked at a lot of data to help inform the Board to be able to make this decision, and every nation has the ability to go to great grandparent as part of the heritage eligibility for their player pools going forward."

Mr Grant also announced on Monday the IRL board unanimously voted to elevate Samoa and Tonga from Tier 2 to Tier 1 nations after both strong showings on field and "gigantic leaps forward regarding their governance and what they are doing domestically".

They will join Australia, New Zealand and England (including Great Britain) in the tier.

On route to their semi final appearance against the Kiwis on Saturday night, Tonga ran over England 30-12 during the pool stage.

They are also the only current Tier 2 nation to have defeated all three Tier 1 men's sides.

Samoa became the first country outside of the Kangaroos, New Zealand, England (Great Britain) and historic powerhouse France to qualify for a men's world cup final when they progressed through in 2022.

"The Board voted unanimously to engage with Tonga and Samoa on elevating them from Tier 2 to Tier 1 status. I have been in contact with both nations to advise them of the Board's decision. We will be working with them over the next couple of months to ensure there is no unintended consequences from that potential elevation to Tier 1," Mr Grant said.

The men's, women's and wheelchair finals will all be played this weekend.

In 2030, the USA and Pacific will host the next men's and women's World Cup in a Magic Round format across yet to be decided cities in a co-staging between the IRL and Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC).

This is set to be three pool rounds then finals across five cities.

France will host the Wheelchair tournament concurrently.

In the men's and women's draws, the number of competing teams will increase to 12 and 10, respectively.