{"id":302959,"date":"2025-11-23T06:09:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T06:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/302959\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T06:09:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T06:09:32","slug":"kangaroos-vs-new-zealand-to-kick-off-rugby-league-world-cup-as-full-draw-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/302959\/","title":{"rendered":"Kangaroos vs New Zealand to kick off Rugby League World Cup as full draw revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia will kick off next year’s Rugby League World Cup against New Zealand, with the full draw and pools confirmed for the tournament.<\/p>\n

Sydney’s Allianz Stadium will host the blockbuster clash on October 15 after both of the heavyweight nations were slotted into Group A along with Fiji and Cook Islands.<\/p>\n

England, Samoa and Lebanon have been drawn in Group B, while the final group will consist of Tonga, Papua New Guinea and France.<\/p>\n

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Group A teams will each play three matches against the other teams in Group A. Group B and C teams will each play three matches against the teams in the adjacent group.<\/p>\n

The top two teams from Group A will progress to the semi finals, while the top two teams from a combined table of Group B and Pool C will also move through.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Kangaroos players celebrate after the Ashes series\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

The final for both the men’s and women’s tournaments will be held at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday, November 15. <\/p>\n

“Rugby League World Cup 2026 couldn’t come at a better time on the back of record-breaking NRL and NRLW seasons, a successful Ashes series, and the most exciting Pacific Championships ever,” ARLC chairman Peter V’landys said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Representing your country is the ultimate honour and doing so in a World Cup is the ultimate stage. The talent, skill, physicality, passion and raw emotion on display will be something like we have never seen before.<\/p>\n

“This will be the best and most successful Rugby League World Cup on record.”<\/p>\n

The full draw for the 2026 Rugby League World Cup can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia will kick off next year’s Rugby League World Cup against New Zealand, with the full draw and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-302959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}