The opening weekend of the Rugby League World Cup is in the books \u2013 and it was one to remember for a number of nations.<\/p>\n
For others.. less so much.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s who we think is hot \u2013 and who is not \u2013 after the first batch of group stage fixtures with our Power Rankings for the men\u2019s tournament..<\/p>\n
10. France<\/p>\n
Sadly there\u2019s only one real place to start this weekend \u2013 and that\u2019s with France. They were handed their biggest-ever Rugby League World Cup defeat at the hands of Samoa and unfortunately, looked some way beneath the standard required to compete over the next few weeks. They will hope to respond this week: against England, no less.<\/p>\n
9. Cook Islands<\/p>\n
A difficult start for the Cook Islands with a heavy defeat to Fiji: and it\u2019s only going to get tougher from here. They have the small matter of New Zealand and Australia to face in their final two matches \u2013 meaning the prospect of finishing bottom of Group A looks increasingly likely.<\/p>\n
8. Lebanon<\/p>\n
There were some who had given Lebanon a chance in their game against Papua New Guinea, but they were ultimately beaten in straightforward fashion. Qualification will be tough from here, with games against France and Tonga to come. They will have to win them both to stand any chance.<\/p>\n
7. England<\/p>\n
A simply miserable start to the World Cup for England in terms of result, and a defeat which leaves them with an uphill task at best to reach the semi-finals. There were glimmers of positives within the performance but in a World Cup, winning is all that matters -a nd England fell badly short.<\/p>\n
6. New Zealand<\/p>\n
It does feel slightly harsh putting the Kiwis so low given how magnificent they were against Australia. But they did lose the game, and we\u2019re judging every nation off one performance so far.. so New Zealand sit sixth as the best-performing losing nation from the opening round of the men\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n
5. Papua New Guinea<\/p>\n
Into the five winners, then. Papua New Guinea were very good on home soil against Lebanon on Saturday \u2013 running out comfortable winners as they find themselves sat in a qualifying spot after a third of the group stage.<\/p>\n
4. Australia<\/p>\n
Next is the reigning holders. Australia weren\u2019t exactly at their best against New Zealand but despite that, they found a way to win the game in Sydney on Thursday. They should qualify with relative ease from here \u2013 so don\u2019t be surprised if they rise up the rankings as the group stage progresses.<\/p>\n
3. Fiji<\/p>\n
The Bati were outstanding on Sunday as they saw off the Cook Islands to go top of Group A after the opening round of fixtures. But for us, there were two clear standouts this weekend..<\/p>\n
2. Tonga<\/p>\n
An eye-catching win for Kristian Woolf\u2019s side against another team with aspirations of going deep means that the Tongans just pip Fiji into second spot this week.<\/p>\n
But there could only realistically be one team at the top..<\/p>\n
1. Samoa<\/p>\n
The records tumbled on Friday as Samoa underlined their position as one of the teams fancied to go all the way and win the World Cup. The 2022 finalists inflicted a record defeat on France and looked very good in doing so. Ben Gardiner\u2019s side look like a huge threat to the rest..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The opening weekend of the Rugby League World Cup is in the books \u2013 and it was one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":933446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-933445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933445","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=933445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/933446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}