Australia start their 2021 Rugby League World Cup at Leeds against a strong Fiji side

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After a long five-year wait, The Rugby League World Cup is finally here and we are about to lock horns with 16 other countries taking part in the most inclusive World Cup we have ever seen. It is not just the men’s team playing in this year’s World Cup, Women’s, Wheelchair, and PDRL are also in their own competition to win the holy grail in the middle of November.

The long list of talent goes on with the range of Penrith Panthers championship winners, Adam Hills and Tara Jane-Stanley will all be in the mix for this year’s World Cup which has been in the planning for years after the roadblock that postponed the original starting date by a year.

However, we are finally here and we have six weeks of non-stop Rugby League with the BBC showing all 61 games from BBC1 to BBC2 or the BBC red button depending on the times.

What a first day we have in store with a new-looking Shaun Wane outfit taking on a strong Samoa team at St. James’s Park to kick off World Cup 2021, but the game we are focussing on is current holders Australia who are taking on one of the favourites in Fiji at the Headingley Stadium, Leeds.

Australia have not played a game together since 2019 when they were in a dogfight with big guns Tonga at Eden Park where they won 16-12 in the Oceanic Cup. Fiji however played England last Friday at the AJ Bell Stadium when a Dominic Young masterclass and very steady defence got England off to the perfect start with confidence on the rise with a score of 50-0.

Australia has a different set of squad numbers as head coach Mal Meninga has changed the squad number rule where he has placed the team in numbers as a look of who has represented the Kangaroos the most, for example, star half-back Nathan Cleary will wear the number 14 shirt.

Meninga spoke about this year’s World Cup;

“As an international coach it’s my job to care about what we do and we want to create our own legacy piece and we want to make our families back home very proud, so for me it’s about creating an environment for the players to be successful and we want the players to go back and have the experience that will put them in a good step”

“I think our past is really important and itsi is gnificant to talk about our stories and how we position ourselves of how we want to play in this tournament and what we want to do to be successful so we’ve planted some seeds really early and all the players here are on board and wants to wear the jersey with great pride”

“I love the game of Rugby League so if you love the game of Rugby League you are pretty selfless so I’m really happy with how we handled the build-up to the world cup and the courage that the players make up their minds on which country that want to represent, and who they want to play for and what nation they are passionate about and the reason why i did that so the 24 players in my team because they want to be here”

You can watch this game on BBC 2 at 7:00

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