1957 Rugby League World Cup
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
1957 Rugby League World Cup result: Australia won the title. Hosted by Australia.
Full match archive (6 games)
Groups
World Cup Table
| Team | P | W | D | L | PF | PA | Diff | Pts | Form |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 82 | 20 | +62 | 6 | WWW |
| Great Britain | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 50 | 65 | -15 | 2 | WLL |
| New Zealand | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 44 | 60 | -16 | 2 | LLW |
| France | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 28 | 59 | -31 | 2 | LWL |
| Date | Result | Venue | Attendance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Jun 1957 | Australia 25–5 New Zealand | The Gabba, Brisbane, Australia | 29,636 |
| 15 Jun 1957 | France 5–23 Great Britain | Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney, Australia | 50,007 |
| 17 Jun 1957 | Australia 31–6 Great Britain | Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney, Australia | 57,995 |
| 17 Jun 1957 | France 14–10 New Zealand | The Gabba, Brisbane, Australia | 28,000 |
| 22 Jun 1957 | Australia 26–9 France | Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney, Australia | 35,158 |
| 25 Jun 1957 | Great Britain 21–29 New Zealand | Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney, Australia | 14,263 |
How the title was decided
Pure round-robin — each of the four teams played the other three once (six matches total), with the table topper crowned champion outright. No separate final was played.
Champion: Australia — Runner-up: Great Britain.
Tournament facts
| Host | Australia |
| Dates | 15–25 June 1957 |
| Teams | 4 |
| Games played | 6 |
| Players used | 68 |
| Average crowd | 35,820 |
Teams (4)
Context
The second World Cup, and the first to be hosted outside Europe.
Australia won the World Cup on home soil by finishing the round-robin table undefeated (3 wins from 3), despite having gone into the tournament as underdogs off the back of a poor Ashes series against a Great Britain side stacked with stars like Billy Boston and Lewis Jones. There was no traditional final: with the format a straight round-robin, the Kangaroos secured the title purely on table position. New Zealand referee Vic Belsham controlled three of the tournament's six matches, including one in which his own brother Sel Belsham played halfback for New Zealand. Great Britain finished runners-up (50 points for, 65 against) narrowly ahead of France on points difference, with New Zealand propping up the table after winning just one of their three matches. The tournament doubled as a 50th-anniversary celebration of rugby league in Australia and drew strong crowds throughout, totalling 215,059 across the six matches at an average of 35,843 — comfortably the best-attended World Cup of its era. Each nation handed out its own best-and-fairest award for the tournament, won by Australia's Brian Carlson, Great Britain's Phil Jackson, France's Gilbert Benausse and New Zealand's Bill Sorensen. Great Britain's touring squad that year featured a strong crop of backs — Billy Boston, Mick Sullivan, Jeff Stevenson and Lewis Jones among them — who had been widely fancied to challenge for the title, making Australia's unbeaten run to the trophy on home soil a bigger surprise than the tight final table suggests.
Sources
← 1954 Rugby League World Cup1960 Rugby League World Cup →
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