2026 Rugby League World Cup Preview — not yet played
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
2026 Rugby League World Cup: hosted by Australia & Papua New Guinea, 15 October – 15 November 2026. 10 teams. Defending champion: Australia (won the 2021/2022 tournament).
Groups
Group A
Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Cook Islands
Group B
Group C
Group tables
No matches played yet — every row is ready to fill in as results come through, computed automatically from the results below rather than hand-entered.
Group A
| Team | P | W | D | L | PF | PA | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| New Zealand | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Fiji | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cook Islands | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Groups B & C (combined table)
| Team | P | W | D | L | PF | PA | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Samoa | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lebanon | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| France | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Papua New Guinea | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tonga | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Group stage fixtures
Knockout stage
Placeholder pairings: The exact semi-final pairing formula (which group's winner faces which runner-up) has not been officially published yet. The placeholders below follow the standard tournament convention of the top seed avoiding the other top seed until the final — swap them out once IRL confirms the actual draw.
| Round | Date | Venue | Match |
|---|---|---|---|
| Semi-final 1 | 7 Nov 2026 | McDonald Jones Stadium, Newcastle | Group A winner v Groups B/C runner-up |
| Semi-final 2 | 8 Nov 2026 | Allianz Stadium, Sydney | Groups B/C winner v Group A runner-up |
| Final | 15 Nov 2026 | Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane | Winner of Semi-final 1 v Winner of Semi-final 2 |
Key dates
| Opening match | 15 October 2026, Sydney Football Stadium |
| Semi-finals | 7–8 November 2026 |
| Final | 15 November 2026 |
Venues
Qualification
Sourcing caveat: Venue and fixture details for a tournament this far out are subject to change before kickoff — treat this page as accurate as of 12 August 2026 and expect updates as the tournament approaches.
Format & context
Ten teams across three groups of uneven size — one group of four (Group A) and two groups of three (Groups B and C). Group A plays a standard round-robin; Groups B and C effectively combine into one six-team group by also playing the teams in the opposite three-team group, so every team ends up with a full schedule despite the uneven group sizes. The top two finishers from Group A advance to the semi-finals, as do the top two from the combined B/C group.
Matches played across Australia (Sydney, Brisbane, Wollongong/Newcastle-Maitland, Perth, Townsville) and Papua New Guinea (Port Moresby), with New Zealand's Te Kaha in Christchurch also confirmed as a venue. The eight quarter-finalists from the 2021/2022 tournament qualified automatically; the two remaining places were decided through a separate qualification process run across 2024-2025. Affiliate-member nations were excluded from qualifying this cycle. The 2026 World Cup returns the tournament to the Southern Hemisphere for the first time since 2017, co-hosted by Australia and Papua New Guinea with additional matches confirmed in New Zealand. It was postponed one cycle from an original 2025 slot. PNG's involvement as a co-host is a landmark moment for the sport's push to establish a fully professional PNG-based team in the NRL system, a project rugby league's governing bodies have explicitly linked to this World Cup. As of this page's last verification date, no matches have been played and no results exist yet — this is a preview page, not a results page, and will be converted to a full results write-up as the tournament is played.
Sources
← 1989–1992 Rugby League World Cup
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