2026 Men's Rugby League World Cup qualification
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| 2026 Rugby League World Cup qualification | |
|---|---|
| Number of teams | 7 (from 4 confederations) |
2030 > | |
The 2026 Men's Rugby League World Cup qualification will decide the teams that will join the quarter-finalists from the previous World Cup at the 2026 Rugby League World Cup.[1]
Qualification will begin on 22 October 2024 with European qualification tournament.[1]
The allocation of teams for the 2026 World Cup was announced on 7 August 2023. The 2026 edition of the Rugby League World Cup will only feature ten men's teams, down from 16 in 2021. The eight quarter-finalists from the previous World Cup achieved automatic qualification, leaving two spots remaining for the qualification process.[1][2]
The qualification process for the 9th and 10th places will be a two-stage process. The first stage is to establish the representatives from each of the four International Rugby League (IRL) confederations (Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Middle East-Africa) with those representatives advancing to a second and final round of qualification in 2025.
The process announced in August 2023 would have seen qualifying tournaments in all four confederations but subsequent changes by the IRL have changed this. In October 2023 IRL confirmed that only full members of the IRL can take part in the qualifying competition.[3] This left only Cook Islands (Asia-Pacific), Jamaica (Americas) and South Africa (Middle East-Africa) as the only full-member nations for their respective confederations, and therefore will automatically advance to the second round of qualification.
This leaves the European confederation as the only one to stage a confederation tournament to decide their second-round slot allocation.[1][2]
As originally planned, following the conclusion of the European confederation qualification tournament, the 2025 World Series will take place with winners and runners up qualifying for the finals.[1][2][3] In March 2025 the IRL announced that as no viable bids to host the World Series had been received, the World Series would be replaced by two single knockout matches, one for the northern hemisphere and one for the southern hemisphere.[4]
Qualified teams
| Team | Method of qualification |
Date of qualification |
Total times qualified |
Last time qualified |
Current consecutive appearances |
Previous best performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 New Zealand |
2021 World Cup Group C winners | 28 October 2022 | 17 | 2021 | 17 | Winners (2008) |
 England |
2021 World Cup Group A winners | 29 October 2022 | 8[a] | 2021 | 8 | Runners-up (1975, 1995, 2017) |
 Australia |
2021 World Cup Group B winners | 29 October 2022 | 17 | 2021 | 17 | Winners (12 times) |
 Fiji |
2021 World Cup Group B runners-up | 29 October 2022 | 7 | 2021 | 7 | Semi-finals (2008, 2013, 2017) |
 Lebanon[b] |
2021 World Cup Group C runners-up | 30 October 2022 | 4 | 2021 | 3 | Quarter-finals (2017, 2021) |
 Tonga |
2021 World Cup Group D winners | 30 October 2022 | 7 | 2021 | 7 | Semi-finals (2017) |
 Samoa |
2021 World Cup Group A runners-up | 30 October 2022 | 7 | 2021 | 7 | Runners-up (2021) |
 Papua New Guinea |
2021 World Cup Group D runners-up | 31 October 2022 | 9 | 2021 | 9 | Quarter-finals (2000, 2017, 2021) |
 France |
Northern Hemisphere play-off winners | 25 October 2025 | 17 | 2021 | 17 | Runners-up (1954, 1968) |
 Cook Islands |
Southern Hemisphere play-off winners | 9 November 2025 | 4 | 2021 | 2 | Group Stage (2000, 2013, 2021) |
European qualifying
The European confederation qualification tournament took place in October 2024 and was open to all full member nations as of 15 March 2024. The winner of the tournament advanced to the World Series in 2025.[1]
Teams played semi-finals and a final. The semi-finals were based on IRL Rank with highest-ranked playing lowest-ranked and second-highest playing second-lowest. The losing semi-finalists contested a third place playoff; this had no bearing on World Cup qualification, but counted for world ranking points.[7]
Bracket
| Semi-finals | Final | ||||||||
| 8 | France
| 74 | |||||||
| 20 |  Ukraine
| 8 | |||||||
| 8 | France
| 48 | |||||||
| 17 |  Wales
| 6 | |||||||
| 11 |  Serbia
| 0 | |||||||
| 17 | Wales
| 48 | |||||||
Semi-finals
| Serbia |
0–48 | Wales |
|---|---|---|
| 1st: 0–30 2nd: 0–18 Report |
Tries: Fozard, Kear, Walker, Evans, Connor Davies, Butt, Worthington, Coope-Franklin Goals: Fozard (7/7), Kear (1/1) |
| Serbia | Position | Wales | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Number | Number | Name | |
| Nikola Cotic | 1 | 1 | Billy Walkley | |
| Rajko Trifunovic | 2 | 2 | Joe Coope-Franklin | |
| Nick O'Meley | 3 | 3 | Mike Butt | |
| David Nofoaluma | 4 | 4 | Will Evans | |
| Andrej Mora | 5 | 5 | Rhys Williams | |
| Jesse Soric | 6 | 6 | Elliot Kear | |
| Vojislav Dedic | 7 | 7 | Josh Ralph | |
| Jake O'Meley | 8 | 8 | Huw Worthington | |
| Sasha Popovic | 9 | 9 | Matty Fozard | |
| Milos Calic | 10 | 10 | Ben Evans | |
| Stefan Arsic | 11 | 11 | Connor Davies | |
| Nikola Djuric | 12 | 12 | Max Clarke | |
| Enis Bibic | 13 | 13 | Sam Bowring | |
| Dzavid Jasari | 14 | 14 | Curtis Davies | |
| Ilija Cotric | 15 | 15 | Matt Ross | |
| Djordje Krnjeta | 16 | 16 | Anthony Walker | |
| Marko Jankovic | 17 | 17 | Ashton Robinson | |
| Aleksandar Pavlovic | 18 | 18 | Fin Yates | |
| Darren Fisher | Coach | Mark Moxon | ||
| France |
74–8 | Ukraine |
|---|---|---|
| Tries: Vailhe, Budde, Pedrero (3), Vailhen, Pelissier (2), Zenon, Goffin, Jouffret, Aispuro Bichett (2), Martin Goals: Albert (6/10), Aispuro Bichett (3/4) |
1st: 48–0 2nd: 26–8 Report |
Tries: Skorbach, Polata |
| France | Position | Ukraine | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Number | Number | Name | |
| Louis Jouffret | 1 | 1 | Yevhhen Davydov | |
| Nittim Pedrero | 2 | 2 | Tigris Polata | |
| Guilerno Aispuro Bichett | 3 | 3 | Mykhailo Troian | |
| Tanguy Zenon | 4 | 4 | Jonah Ngaronoa | |
| Clement Martin | 5 | 5 | Danylo Vedler | |
| Lucas Albert | 6 | 6 | Oleksandr Skorbach | |
| Thomas Lacans | 7 | 7 | Daniel Janissen | |
| Clement Boyer | 8 | 8 | Oleksandr Syvokoz | |
| Nolan Lopez-Buttignol | 9 | 9 | Dmytro Semerenko | |
| Florien Vailhen | 10 | 10 | Volodymyr Karpenko | |
| Jayson Goffin | 11 | 11 | Yevhenii Trusov | |
| Hnaloan Budden | 12 | 12 | Tom Mencinksy | |
| Mickael Goudemand | 13 | 13 | Victor Tereszko | |
| Eloi Pelissier | 14 | 14 | Yaroslav Davydov | |
| Tiaki Chan | 15 | 15 | Vitalii Puchkov | |
| Hugo Salabio | 16 | 16 | Yevhen Checheta | |
| Justin Sangare | 17 | 17 | Valentyn Korchak | |
| Laurent Frayssinous | Coach | Dan Beardshaw | ||
Final
| Wales |
6–48 | France |
|---|---|---|
| Tries: Williams Goals: Fozard (1/1) |
1st: 6–20 2nd: 0–28 Report |
Tries: Romano, Rouge (2), Franco, Pelissier, Sangare, Fages, Belmas, Chan Goals: Rouge (6/9) |
| Wales | Position | France | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Number | Number | Name | |
| Billy Walkley | 1 | 1 | Cesar Rouge | |
| Joe Coope-Franklin | 2 | 2 | Hakim Miloudi | |
| Mike Butt | 3 | 3 | Arthur Romano | |
| Will Evans | 4 | 4 | Mathieu Laguerre | |
| Rhys Williams | 5 | 5 | Romain Franco | |
| Elliot Kear | 6 | 6 | Ugo Tison | |
| Josh Ralph | 7 | 7 | Theo Fages | |
| Huw Worthington | 8 | 8 | Lambert Belmas | |
| Matthew Fozard | 9 | 9 | Alrix Da Costa | |
| Ben Evans | 10 | 10 | Tiaki Chan | |
| Connor Davies | 11 | 11 | Maxime Stefani | |
| Matt Ross | 12 | 12 | Mathieu Cozza | |
| Sam Bowring | 13 | 13 | Mickael Goudemand | |
| Curtis Davies | 14 | 14 | Eloi Pelissier | |
| Anthony Walker | 15 | 15 | Justin Sangare | |
| Ashton Robinson | 16 | 16 | Clement Boyer | |
| Sam Grice | 17 | 17 | Anthony Marion | |
| Mark Moxon | Coach | Laurent Frayssinous | ||
