the All Blacks<\/a>, who are in the same pool.<\/p>\nThe hosts traditionally launch the quadrennial showpiece, with France taking on the All Blacks in the 2023 edition.<\/p>\n
Fans in Australia and New Zealand slammed the scheduling on social media, while Perth-based media said local Wallabies fans had been short-changed.<\/p>\n
![\"Tupou](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4KJ4O5X_240928AllBlacksAustralia_188_JPG.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nTupou Vaa’i celebrates after scoring for the All Blacks against the Wallabies, in 2024.
\nPhoto: PHOTOSPORT\n<\/p>\n
World Rugby chairman Brett Robinson acknowledged the Australia-Hong Kong matchup was polarising but said the governing body’s role was to grow the game.<\/p>\n
“Clearly people will have different opinions and the sides will have different opinions, but we’ve landed where we’ve landed,” Robinson told reporters.<\/p>\n
“For me, the pools are this great opportunity where clearly we are going to have teams that are dominating, but we also have teams that are aspiring.<\/p>\n
“That’s our role as World Rugby, to build and grow our great global game.”<\/p>\n
Robinson spoke after World Rugby released the fixtures for the biggest-ever tournament.<\/p>\n
The expanded 24-team World Cup features 52 matches across 19 match days in seven cities – with a shortened pool stage but a new knockout round of 16.<\/p>\n
Both semi-finals and the 13 November final are at Sydney’s Stadium Australia.<\/p>\n
Tickets start at $46 with a million tickets available at $116 or under.<\/p>\n
South Africa begin their bid for a third successive title against Italy in Adelaide on 3 October before playing Georgia and Romania while England, who won the World Cup last time it was in Australia in 2003, start against Tonga in Brisbane on 2 October and also face Zimbabwe and Wales.<\/p>\n
Three-times winners the All Blacks start against Chile and then have the stand-out fixture of the pool stage against Australia in Sydney on 9 October.<\/p>\n
‘Massive match’ against All Blacks<\/p>\n
Australia captain Harry Wilson had championed starting against the All Blacks at the draw in December, saying “it doesn’t get much better than that.”<\/p>\n
At a press event for the fixtures launch in Sydney on Tuesday, he had to row back a bit.<\/p>\n
“I went off a little bit too early there,” Wilson told reporters.<\/p>\n
“It’s obviously great to verse (play) Hong Kong in the first match and then have a week to build to what is going to be another massive match against New Zealand.”<\/p>\n
Ireland, who have never got past the quarter-finals, start against Portugal before playing Scotland on 10 October, while France start against the United States.<\/p>\n
Two matches staged in the same city over the same weekend will take place across all seven host cities.<\/p>\n
The pool phase will conclude in a historic Super Sunday on 17 October, featuring five matches in a day, a first in tournament history.<\/p>\n
Brisbane Stadium and Stadium Australia in Sydney will host back-to-back quarter-finals on 30-31 October.<\/p>\n
-Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sevu Reece of the All Blacks tackled by Marika Koroibete of the Wallabies during the All Blacks v…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,1590,63,1589,44,1591,1588,1586,1587,760,85],"class_list":["post-456204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-audio","tag-australia","tag-current-affairs","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456204","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=456204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Sevu](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4KJHWDW_h_00186557_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n