The opening weekend of the 2026 Rugby League World Cup brought some bruising encounters: with a number of sides suffering injury blows.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a round-up of the latest injury news from across the men\u2019s tournament\u2026<\/p>\n
Australia<\/p>\n
Mitchell Moses was forced off in the second half of the Kangaroos\u2019 24-22 victory over New Zealand in the opening game of the World Cup, and an MRI scan has since confirmed he has suffered a high-grade calf tear. His tournament is over.<\/p>\n
Cook Islands<\/p>\n
As the Cook Islands were beaten 40-12 by Fiji, Bradford ace Esan Marsters played in the halves, but was withdrawn at half-time.<\/p>\n
Kuki\u2019s head coach Karmichael Hunt confirmed post-match that was just to help manage his return from an Achilles rupture which kept him out for much of the Super League season.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Hunt also revealed that\u00a0Valentine Holmes has been made available for selection after recovering from a syndesmosis injury, so he may be involved this weekend against New Zealand.<\/p>\n
England<\/p>\n
England came through their opening defeat to Tonga unscathed, with\u00a0AJ Brimson\u00a0passing the Head Injury Assessment (HIA) he was forced off for late on.<\/p>\n
Brian McDermott\u2019s side were though, of course, without Morgan Knowles through an injury suffered in training. It\u2019s unknown at present whether he will be able to feature this weekend against France.<\/p>\n
France<\/p>\n
Les Bleus were well beaten by Samoa, and lost Leo Darrelatour to a failed HIA early on, so he will have to sit out of their clash against England in Perth.<\/p>\n
In more positive news, fellow Super League ace Cesar Rouge passed his HIA.<\/p>\n
Lebanon<\/p>\n
Former Castleford man\u00a0Charbel Tasipale had to withdraw from Lebanon\u2019s defeat in Port Moresby to Papua New Guinea after pulling up in the warm-up, so checks will be needed as to whether he can feature this weekend against Tonga.<\/p>\n
New Zealand<\/p>\n
Making his Test debut for the Kiwis, full-back\u00a0Kalyn Ponga broke his arm early on in the second half of their defeat to Australia and was only forced off after playing through the pain barrier to score two tries.<\/p>\n
Ponga has already had surgery and is expected to miss the remainder of the World Cup, but New Zealand have confirmed he will remain in camp, not giving up hope of a miracle return should they go deep into the tournament.<\/p>\n
Samoa<\/p>\n
Samoa will have to get a scan on Deine Mariner\u2018s hamstring after he was withdrawn in the big win over France. Head coach Ben Gardiner detailed that withdrawal was precautionary post-match with the game already well won, but it remains to be seen whether Mariner will be fit to play against PNG this weekend.<\/p>\n
Tonga<\/p>\n
As Tonga beat England, they lost Latu Fainu to a sore pec, with further checks needed on that injury. Team-mate Demitric Vaimauga also passed a HIA but didn\u2019t return to the field, so again, time will tell whether he can be involved this weekend against Lebanon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The opening weekend of the 2026 Rugby League World Cup brought some bruising encounters: with a number of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-807532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}