Australia have dominated this competition in the past, but they’ll need to be at their best this time to keep New Zealand at bay in a month-long World Cup that promises great games.
Betting Tip
There’s no doubting Australia should be the favourites here, with their incredible record in this competition as the main factor.
But New Zealand have been playing really well of late and have shortened the gap between the two over the last few years. They’re very likely to meet in the Final, and it may be worth taking the gamble that they’ll go on to win it, so outright odds of 3.2 are worth chancing.
Current Favourites on Betting Sites
As you’d expect from a team with 12 World Cup wins from 16 and nine from the last 10, Australia are the hot favourites at 1.62, also having home advantage on their side in addition to everything else, with all their Pool A games played on Australian soil, in addition to the semis and final.
As any rugby team that has ever played Australia in Australia knows, those are some very loud and partisan fans, so if playing the best team in the history of the game isn’t hard enough, dealing with tens of thousands of loyal Aussie supporters makes it even harder.
Next up are Group A rivals New Zealand at 3.25, with Samoa 10.0, while both England and Tonga are 14.0. The rest are all in triple-figure odds, such as Papua New Guinea at 301.0 and France at 501.0.
The obvious threat to more Australian dominance is clearly New Zealand. The odds of 3.0 suggest that, but plenty of other factors do too.
The Kiwis are the number 2-ranked team in the world behind Australia and have won seven of their last 10, which included four wins in a row on their route to lifting the 2025 Pacific Championship, beating Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and then Samoa again in the final, though we note they were fortunate in avoiding playing Australia during that run.
The Final before the Final?
We won’t have to wait long before seeing the two tournament favourites in action.
Thursday’s opening match sees Australia take on New Zealand at 10:05 if you’re in the UK.
The Aussies are 1.66 to win, with the Kiwis at 2.03 and the draw at 15.0. So the bookies are showing plenty of respect for New Zealand, because against any other team in the competition, you'd expect the 12-time winners to be much shorter than that.
You can get odds of 1.85 that Australia beat the -2.5 point handicap and the same odds of 1.85 that New Zealand stay within the handicap: win, draw or lose by just one or two points.
Will it be a high-scoring affair, or not? It’s 1.91 that the match will have over 38.5 points in it and 1.8 that it will stay below 38 points, while Australia being up at half-time and winning at full-time pays out at 2.3; their opponents being up at the break with Australia going on to win at full-time is 6.5
This is a key match for several reasons.
A win here would make the winner the hot favourite to top the group and take a potentially easier route to the final, while putting the loser under pressure. Though both teams are expected to progress to the next round by beating the other teams in the Group, one unexpected slip-up in another match could put their place in the semis at risk.
But if the tournament-winner odds are any guide, and we assume these are the two teams most likely to reach the Final, a win here would give the winning side huge confidence and momentum for that showdown in Brisbane in a month’s time.
England v Tonga of Huge Interest
Another extremely close game to look out for is England v Tonga on Saturday morning. Tonga are marginal favourites at 1.7 with England 2.2 and the draw 15.0.
A Tonga win by 1-7 points is priced at 3.4, and that looks like one of the better wagers in the game.
Fun Fact
International rugby league games tend to have about 35 to 50 points in them, with Australia’s 2013 and 2021 final wins being by scores of 30-10 and 34-2, while New Zealand's 2008 win was 34-20.
So, it was a huge surprise when the 2017 final between Australia and England finished just 6-0 to the Aussies. Even more so when you consider that Australia had beaten Fiji 54-6 in the semi-final, while England also had a high-scoring game in their own semi, winning 20-18 against Tonga.
