Rugby League World Cup 2026: Fixtures, Groups, Venues and Betting Guide
The 2026 Rugby League World Cup runs 15 October to 15 November across Australia, PNG and New Zealand. Full fixture list, pools, venues, the finals structure and an honest guide to how the betting markets work.
Quick answer. The 2026 Rugby League World Cup runs from Thursday 15 October to Sunday 15 November 2026, co-hosted by Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. Ten men's nations are split into one pool of four and two pools of three. It opens with Australia v New Zealand at Sydney Football Stadium on 15 October and finishes with the final at Lang Park (Suncorp Stadium) in Brisbane on Sunday 15 November.
For the first time in a long time, Australian rugby league does not go quiet in November. The World Cup lands in the middle of what is normally the deadest month of the calendar, three weeks after the NRL grand final, and it brings a full month of international football played almost entirely in Australian and Papua New Guinean time zones.
This page is the fixture list, the format, the venues and an honest guide to how the betting markets work in a tournament like this. If you follow our weekly NRL model tips, read the section on what our model can and cannot tell you about international rugby league before you use any of this.
Pools and format
Ten teams, three pools. Pool A has four nations and Pools B and C have three each, so the smaller pools play cross-pool fixtures to even up the number of matches. Four teams reach the semi-finals.
Pool A fixtures
The Kangaroos play all three of their pool matches in Australia, moving Sydney to Brisbane to Townsville. New Zealand's Cook Islands fixture is the only Pool A match staged in New Zealand.
| Date | Match | Venue | City |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thu 15 Oct | Australia v New Zealand | Sydney Football Stadium | Sydney |
| Sun 18 Oct | Fiji v Cook Islands | Newcastle International Sports Centre | Newcastle |
| Sun 25 Oct | Australia v Fiji | Lang Park (Suncorp Stadium) | Brisbane |
| Sun 25 Oct | New Zealand v Cook Islands | Te Kaha | Christchurch |
| Sat 31 Oct | Australia v Cook Islands | North Queensland Stadium | Townsville |
| Sat 31 Oct | New Zealand v Fiji | Robina Stadium | Gold Coast |
Australian matches highlighted. All dates are the local match date in the host city. Kick-off times are set by the tournament broadcaster and are worth checking on the day, particularly for the Christchurch and Port Moresby fixtures.
Pool B and Pool C fixtures
Because both pools carry three teams, the schedule mixes pool matches with cross-pool matches. England play all of their football in Perth and Wollongong, and Papua New Guinea get two home fixtures in Port Moresby, which will be as hostile an away venue as exists in the sport.
| Date | Match | Venue | City |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fri 16 Oct | Samoa v France | Western Sydney Stadium | Sydney |
| Sat 17 Oct | Papua New Guinea v Lebanon | PNG Football Stadium | Port Moresby |
| Sat 17 Oct | England v Tonga | Perth Rectangular Stadium | Perth |
| Fri 23 Oct | Tonga v Lebanon | Western Sydney Stadium | Sydney |
| Sat 24 Oct | Papua New Guinea v Samoa | PNG Football Stadium | Port Moresby |
| Sat 24 Oct | England v France | Perth Rectangular Stadium | Perth |
| Fri 30 Oct | England v Papua New Guinea | Wollongong Showground | Wollongong |
| Sun 1 Nov | Lebanon v France | Western Sydney Stadium | Sydney |
| Sun 1 Nov | Tonga v Samoa | Western Sydney Stadium | Sydney |
Semi-finals and final
| Date | Match | Venue | City |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sat 7 Nov | Semi-final 1: Pool A runner-up v Pool B/C winner | Newcastle International Sports Centre | Newcastle |
| Sun 8 Nov | Semi-final 2: Pool A winner v Pool B/C runner-up | Sydney Football Stadium | Sydney |
| Sun 15 Nov | Final | Lang Park (Suncorp Stadium) | Brisbane |
What our model can and cannot tell you here
Straight answer: our NRL model does not cover this tournament, and we are not going to pretend it does.
The ensemble behind our weekly tips is trained on more than 1,500 NRL club matches. Its features are club form, head-to-head history, five-game patterns, travel, venue and weather. Every one of those features assumes a competition where the same seventeen teams play each other repeatedly under a salary cap. International rugby league breaks all of it. Nations assemble for a handful of matches a year, squads change completely between tournaments, and the talent gap between the top two or three sides and the rest is far wider than anything in the NRL. Feeding those matches into a club model would produce numbers that look precise and mean nothing.
You can check what the model does claim, and how it has actually performed, on our public accuracy tracker. We publish the real figure every round, including the rounds it gets wrong. Applying that same standard here means saying plainly that we have no calibrated model for international football, so on this page you get fixtures, format, structure and market mechanics rather than invented probabilities.
How World Cup betting markets differ from NRL markets
If your betting habits are built on the NRL, a few things change in a tournament like this.
The favourite is much shorter than you are used to
In a typical NRL round the model rarely rates any side above the high eighties. In a World Cup pool stage, matches between a tier-one nation and a developing nation can be far more lopsided than anything in the club game. That has a practical consequence: head-to-head markets on those games carry almost no value in either direction, and the interest moves to the line and the total.
Line and margin markets carry the real uncertainty
The question in a mismatch is not who wins, it is by how much, and margin is genuinely hard to predict when a squad has played together for two weeks. Big handicaps are volatile. A team can be thirty points better and still fail to cover if the weather turns or the favourite empties the bench early with a semi-final in mind.
Squad news matters more than form
Club form gives you dozens of recent matches to read. International squads give you almost nothing, so team-list day carries a lot of weight. Eligibility rules also mean the Pacific nations can look dramatically different from one tournament to the next depending on who commits.
Outright markets move on the draw, not just on quality
With only four semi-finalists and a fixed bracket, which side of the draw a nation lands in has a real effect on their path. Pool A's top two go through directly, so the Pool B and C qualification race is where the outright market is most likely to shift during the tournament.
Working out whether a price is worth taking
The maths does not change just because it is a World Cup. Convert the price to an implied probability, decide whether you genuinely think the real chance is higher, and stake accordingly. Our free tools do the arithmetic:
- Odds converter: turn any decimal price into an implied probability, and see how much of it is bookmaker margin.
- Multi bet calculator: combined odds and the real probability of a multi landing across several pool matches.
- Kelly calculator: how much to stake given an edge you believe in, and why full Kelly is usually too aggressive.
- Hedge calculator: what it costs to lock in a result on a futures bet once your team reaches a semi-final.
The rugby league calendar around the World Cup
The tournament fills the gap between the NRL grand final on Sunday 4 October and the pre-season. That makes October and November unusually busy for Australian punters, with the World Cup, the AFL trade period and draft, and the Melbourne Cup carnival all landing in the same six weeks. Our Australian betting calendar maps the whole year if you want to see where the quiet weeks actually are.
Related on TippingEdge
Frequently asked questions
When does the 2026 Rugby League World Cup start and finish?
The tournament runs from Thursday 15 October to Sunday 15 November 2026. It opens with Australia against New Zealand at Sydney Football Stadium and finishes with the final at Lang Park, also known as Suncorp Stadium, in Brisbane on Sunday 15 November.
Which countries are hosting the 2026 Rugby League World Cup?
Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand share hosting duties. Most matches are in Australia, Papua New Guinea hosts fixtures at PNG Football Stadium in Port Moresby, and New Zealand hosts the New Zealand against Cook Islands pool match in Christchurch.
Which teams are in the 2026 Rugby League World Cup?
Ten men's nations. Pool A is Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the Cook Islands. Pool B is England, Lebanon and Samoa. Pool C is France, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.
How do teams qualify for the semi-finals?
The top two from Pool A advance directly. The leading two nations from the combined Pool B and Pool C standings fill the other two places. The semi-finals are on Saturday 7 November in Newcastle and Sunday 8 November in Sydney.
Where is the 2026 Rugby League World Cup final being played?
At Lang Park, better known as Suncorp Stadium, in Brisbane on Sunday 15 November 2026.
Does the TippingEdge model predict World Cup matches?
No. Our ensemble is trained on NRL club matches and its features assume a repeating club competition with a salary cap. International rugby league does not work that way, so we do not have a calibrated model for these games and we will not publish probabilities that pretend otherwise. You can see what the model does cover, and how accurate it has actually been, on our public accuracy tracker.
What is the best market to bet on in a World Cup pool match?
That depends entirely on the match and on your own read, and nothing here is a recommendation to bet. What is worth understanding is that head-to-head prices in heavily one-sided pool games carry very little value either way, so most of the genuine uncertainty sits in the line and total markets. Squad announcements matter more than form because international sides assemble for only a few matches a year.