Watch every second of Super Rugby Pacific live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nThe event will be hosted in Georgia, with Chris Whittaker’s side set to be based in Kutaisi as they kick off their tournament on June 27.<\/p>\n
This will be followed by a clash with the Fijians on July 2 before they take on four-time champions France five days later.<\/p>\n
The four pool winners will progress to the semi-finals, while second-placed teams will compete for fifth to eight places. <\/p>\n
Third and fourth-placed teams will contest rankings from ninth to 12th and 13th to 16th respectively, with seeding based on pool-stage competition points.<\/p>\n
The Final will be held on July 18, with Australia looking to improve on their fifth place finish from 2025.<\/p>\n
The Junior World Championship 2026 will also mark a significant step forward in player welfare, becoming the first international competition to feature a trial of lowering the tackle height.<\/p>\n
“We are thrilled to unveil the Junior World Championship, a bold new identity for one of our most important competitions,” World Rugby Chair Brett Robinson said. <\/p>\n
“Expanding to 16 teams underlines our ambition to grow the game globally and provide more opportunities for emerging talent to experience world-class rugby<\/p>\n
“Georgia has proven to be an outstanding host in the past, and we look forward to working closely with them again to deliver a truly world-class tournament that celebrates the future of our sport and unearths the next generation of international stars.”<\/p>\n
Australia U20 Match Schedule:
<\/p>\n
*All 3 matches played at AIA Arena, Kutaisi
<\/p>\n
Matchday 1: Australia v Spain on Saturday 27th June at 20:30 (local time).
<\/p>\n
Matchday 2: Australia v Fiji on Thursday 2nd July at 15:30 (local time).
<\/p>\n
Matchday 3: Australia v France on Tuesday 7th July at 18:00 (local time)<\/p>\n
Pools:
<\/p>\n
Pool A: South Africa, Wales, Georgia, Uruguay
<\/p>\n
Pool B: New Zealand, Italy, Scotland, Japan
<\/p>\n
Pool C: Argentina, England, Ireland, USA
<\/p>\n
Pool D: France, Australia, Spain, Fiji<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia U20s will face Spain, Fiji and France as part of the World Rugby Junior World Championship. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,8626,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-414387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australia-u20","11":"tag-rugby","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414387","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=414387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}