Rugby League World Cup News
The Rugby League World Cup, often shortened to RLWC, is the most prestigious tournament in Rugby League and acts the greatest worldwide celebration of the sport whenever it takes place.
The World Cup was the first to be held of either code of Rugby when France hosted the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1954 but since that first edition, the event has continued to grow in size and stature and now features multiple categories including a men’s event, a women’ event, a student event, and a wheelchair Rugby League event.
The RLWC is the only time when all of the worlds greatest stars come to together with all of the pride and passion of representing your country and heritage and so it will come as no surprise that there is lots of news breaking not just during the tournament but continually in the build up to the next event.
The biggest news stories to do with the top countries will be covered by most sporting news outlets and even the main stream general news sources but for the smaller nations or news just of interest to a fans in a particular country, it can be difficult for finds to find the breaking news.
Thankfully, there is now an easy way to read the latest Rugby League World Cup news from across the globe as we bring you all of the latest headlines- all you need to do is follow the links for the full story.
RLWC Breaking News
The tournament is where the best shine and new stars are made and with its global reach, it is no surprise that is the build up to the next event and during the tournament itself, there is consistent breaking news and when it does break, you can read the headlines right here on this page.
Rugby League World Cup Latest News Today
With news stories breaking across the globe with regards to the biggest event of them all, it can be difficult to keep up with any news stories, changes, or breaking news as and when they happen but you can be assured that as son as a story is reported, we will bring you the headlines right here on this page.
Location
The modern World Cup changes host nation every 4 years with some tournament shield in 1 or more country but countries as varied as Australia, New Zealand, England, France, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Wales have all held matches or the tournament outright.
About
The Rugby League World Cup is not just an event to decide upon the best country in the world across numerous versions of the sport we all love but it is truly a celebration of the sport where the stories around the event can be just as incredible action on the field.
From the incredible passion of fans in Papua New Guinea to huge sacrifices made by the Greek players and lots more besides, the RLWC represents everything great about the 13 man code.
History
The joy of millions of fans across the globe who get to enjoy the Rugby League World Cup can be traced back to France in the 1930’s, when the idea of a global international competition was first mooted but it wasn’t until 1951 and the insistence of Paul Barriere, the then President of French Rugby League, when the idea became reality.
France were awarded the first ever hosting rights to the event, which took place in the country in 1954 where it was Great Britian who defeated France in the final to win the first every title of ‘World Champions’.
The first tournament only featured France, GB, Australia and New Zealand and despite some issues, it proved to be a success and the next event took place 3 years later, with Australia hosting the tournament to mark 50 years of the sport arriving in the country.
Australia would win that event before Great Britian would host and win the next tournament but that 1960’s edition struggled for crowds and coupled with France pulling out of the next, the World Cup concept struggled.
It took until 1968 for the next edition but the 1972 edition did go ahead as planned and it saw Clive Sullivan become the first black player to captain a British national representative team.
Bizarrely, the event underwent a massive overhaul for the next couple of decades which so no host nations, some event stake place around the globe over many years and towards the end of the concept, tour matches would work towards the outcome of the ‘World Cup’.
The Great Britian v Australia match as part of the 1989-92 round of matches featured over 73,000 fans in attendance at Wembley Stadium to create a record crowd for the Rugby League international test match that wasn’t broken until 2013 when nearly 75,000 fans watch the final at Old Trafford.
The modern World Cup set up really stated in 1995 when a nation hosted the event which featured a number of pools before entertaining a knock out phase before a final to decide the winner.
That 95 edition proved to be a big success, featured a host of countries that have gone on to become stalwarts of the sport and most importantly it featured large crowds including over 66,000 for the final.
Unfortunately the sports to undo itself occurred once again with the Super Leagues wars in Australia led to the postponement of the next edition to the year 2000 where it was a case of quantity over quality.
Too many matches were played in grounds and locations that just should be featured in a tournament of the stature of the RLC and with poor weather throughout, it was no surprise that there was little interest from neutrals or even from fans of the sport.
It took another 8 years for the tournament to come back and this time just 1o countries participated in a much improved tournament where attendance were up over 91% and New Zealand shocked the world by defeating the Kangaroos on their home turf.
2013 saw the tournament truly become a global event with a huge upturn in the quality of the action, the amount of teams participating and exposure on all levels which culminated in the huge record breaking crowd for the final.
New Zealand and Australia hosted the next event that would feature many of the biggest shocks in the events history and the emergence of a number of countries as top level teams, including Tonga who proved a major shock by defeating New Zealand and who also created one of the most iconic moments in the history of the World Cup with 30,000+ of their fans singing in perfect harmony in their semi-final loss to England.
RLWC News Headlines
With so much interest in the event, it is no surprise that so many fans of the sport are searching for the latest news but the tournament also attracts those new to the sport.
No matter if you have follow things for years or the tournament is your first experience of the 13 man code, keeping with all of the latest news headlines is now straight forward as we bring them to you on this page.
Rugby League World Cup News Update
As stories break, you can be assured that there will be regular updates and when they happen, we will bring you all of the latest up to date news from across the globe.
Rugby League Headlines
It is unfortunate that the 13-man code is so often overlooked by mainstream media and that leads fans of the sport having to search out alternative outlets for the latest Rugby League headlines.
But with social media, blogs and click bait websites offering opinion, spin, lies and worse as fact, it can be a hugely frustrating experience for fans of the sport to find not only the latest Rugby League headlines but, most importantly, factually correct headlines.
In the era of 24 hours news cycles, the race to be first with breaking news headlines and the sad lack of fact checking and effects in the modern media, confusion and mis-trust are often part and parcel of reading the latest news.
That is such a sad state of affairs in all aspects of life but it is especially so for a small community such as the one that surrounds the 13 man code of Rugby where community is still at the heart of the sport.