The men’s Rugby League World Cup will begin at 8pm tonight (AEDT) with a clash of the tournament’s two top-ranked teams, Australia and New Zealand.
The women’s tournament will begin tomorrow night with Australia facing Samoa.
You can watch every match on Channel Seven and 7plus.
Here’s what to know.
Format
The men’s tournament features 10 teams, down from 16 after a string of one-sided results at the last tournament in England.
Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the Cook Islands form one pool, while the remaining six sides are split into two further groups that cross over, with each team playing every side in the opposite group rather than its own.
The top two teams from Australia’s pool, plus the top two from the combined ladder of the other two groups, advance to the semi-finals on 7 and 8 November.
The women’s tournament will have eight teams vying for World Cup glory, split into two pools of four.
The top two from each group will advance to the semi-finals on the same dates.
The finals for both tournaments are scheduled for 15 November at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium.
Men’s tournament
Australia’s Kangaroos are the tournament’s defending champions and have won the title a record 12 times.
The only other teams to have won are Great Britain (1954, 1960, 1972) and New Zealand (2008).
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The Kangaroos, captained by Panthers star Isaah Yeo, head into the tournament as heavy favourites, with their biggest challenge expected to come from New Zealand.
The Kiwis look stronger than they have in years with a team built around captain James Fisher-Harris, playmaker Jahrome Hughes, and fullback Kalyn Ponga.
Other potential contenders for the title include Samoa and England.
Samoa were runners-up at the last World Cup in 2022 and feature NRL stars Stephen Crichton and Brian To’o.
England will be hungry to avenge a 3-0 Ashes series loss to Australia in 2025.
Their team includes 10 NRL players, highlighted by premiership winners Victor Radley and Hugo Savala.
Women’s tournament
Australia’s Jillaroos, who will open their title defence against Samoa on Friday, have lost just once in their past 16 matches and have not conceded more than two tries in a game since 2018.
Nine of Australia’s squad were named in this year’s NRLW team of the year, including Dally M medallist Tamika Upton.
The team is being captained by Isabelle Kelly, who captained the Sydney Roosters to an NRLW premiership earlier this month.
In the last World Cup final in 2022, Australia beat New Zealand 54-4.
Since then, New Zealand have improved, beating the Jillaroos in 2023 and coming within six points of a win last year.
The Kiwi Ferns will be co-captained by Raecene McGregor and Georgia Hale.
Elsewhere, Fiji is making its World Cup debut, while Papua New Guinea are a steadily improving outfit.
