The second week of the 2026 Rugby League World Cup provided one absolute thriller alongside some blowout scores: but how did the attendances fare?<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s international showpiece tournament is taking place Down Under across Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a run through every attendance from the men\u2019s competition over the weekend just gone, with some of those having formed part of double-headers alongside women\u2019s games, which we\u2019ll reference where appropriate\u2026<\/p>\n
Tonga 36-0 Lebanon: 25,065<\/p>\n
Forming part of a double-header alongside Samoa\u2019s big 76-0 win over Wales in the Women\u2019s Rugby League World Cup, this clash at the CommBank Stadium was among three of five men\u2019s games this weekend that drew a crowd above 25,000.<\/p>\n
The home of Parramatta Eels also hosted a double-header last weekend which included Samoa\u2019s men beating France 78-4: but only 13,174 were there to watch that, so this represents an almost doubled attendance week-on-week at the same venue.<\/p>\n
Next weekend, the CommBank is the venue for a triple-header, starting with the Jillaroos taking on Wales in the women\u2019s tournament. Lebanon-France and Tonga-Samoa are the two men\u2019s games which follow, with all eyes on the latter for everyone connected to England as that result looks set to decide the destiny of Brian McDermott\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
Papua New Guinea 6-64 Samoa: 14,800<\/p>\n
Just as they did last weekend, PNG\u2019s men and women hosted a double-header in Port Moresby, but having both won last weekend, both were beaten here \u2013 with the Orchids losing to Fiji.<\/p>\n
11,624 were at the\u00a0Santos National Football Stadium in Port Moresby for last weekend\u2019s double-header, so the one big positive is the week-on-week attendance increase.<\/p>\n
No more games will be held in PNG now during the World Cup.<\/p>\n
England 82-0 France: 13,087<\/p>\n
England\u2019s men and women remained at the HBF Park in Perth for their second double-header, with roles reversed this weekend \u2013 McDermott\u2019s side thumped France while Stuart Barrow\u2019s women were well beaten by the Jillaroos.<\/p>\n
This was the lowest crowd of the weekend, and well down on last weekend\u2019s double-header at the same venue which saw 18,302 in attendance as England\u2019s men were beaten by Tonga.<\/p>\n
No more games will be held at HBF Park during the World Cup.<\/p>\n
New Zealand 82-16 Cook Islands: 26,800<\/p>\n
The first-ever international games of rugby league were played at the One New Zealand Stadium in Christchurch, with big wins for both the Kiwis and the Kiwi Ferns \u2013 with the latter routing France 92-0 in the women\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n
New Zealand Warriors had played one NRL game at the venue prior, which came in June against North Queensland Cowboys and drew 25,365 spectators. A slight increase to be positive about here, in any case.<\/p>\n
Again, no more games will be held at the One New Zealand Stadium during the World Cup.<\/p>\n
Australia 36-22 Fiji: 41,108<\/p>\n
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the biggest attendance of the weekend by some distance came at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday, with those in attendance getting to watch an absolute humdinger.<\/p>\n
The venue is, of course, the home to NRL sides Brisbane Broncos and Dolphins \u2013 with this attendance higher than quite a lot of the pair\u2019s games in 2026, though not all.<\/p>\n
This clash between the Kangaroos and Fiji was the first game played at Suncorp during the World Cup. Come next month, it will host both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s finals in a double-header.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second week of the 2026 Rugby League World Cup provided one absolute thriller alongside some blowout scores:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-813620","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\/813620","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=813620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}