The 2021 Men's Rugby League World Cup was the 16th Rugby League World Cup, and one of three major tournaments of the 2021 Rugby League World Cup. The tournament was held in England from 15 October 2022 to 19 November 2022. It was originally due to be held between 23 October 2021 and 27 November 2021, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent withdrawals of Australia and New Zealand caused the tournament to be postponed. 16 teams competed in the tournament, an increase of two from the previous two tournaments and the first to feature 16 teams since the 2000 Rugby League World Cup.
For the first time, the Rugby League World Cup was run alongside the women's and wheelchair tournaments with all participants being paid the same, while all 61 matches in the three tournaments were broadcast live.
Australia beat Samoa 30âÂÂ10 in the final to win the tournament for the third successive time, extending their record number of World Cup titles to twelve.
The eight quarter-finalists of the previous tournament in 2017 earned automatic qualification to the 2021 tournament. As such, the allocations were confirmed as 6 teams from Europe (excluding hosts), 6 from Asia-Pacific, 1 from Middle East-Africa, 1 from the Americas, and 1 from an inter-regional play-off. Qualification began on 16 June 2018, and concluded on 16 November 2019.
The draw was originally scheduled to be finalised on 27 November 2019, exactly two years before the date of the tournament final, however, it was postponed until 16 January 2020. The draw was made at Buckingham Palace on 16 January 2020 and was streamed live on Facebook. Teams from pot 1 were drawn by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, pot 2 by Katherine Grainger, and pot 3 by Jason Robinson.
The draw resulted in the following teams being drawn into the following groups. Each group had to have at least one team from the Pacific region. As such, Lebanon were not eligible to be drawn into Group A from pot 1.
From September 2022, teams announced wider squads of up to 38 players, which were reduced to 24 before the beginning of the tournament.
Seventeen venues were used for the men's tournament.
13 base camps were used by the 16 national squads to stay and train before and during the World Cup tournament, as follow:
The list of match officials who officiated across both the men's and women's tournaments was published on 5 October 2022.
Matches were played to the International Rugby League (IRL) rules. Certain differences between the way the rules of Australia and Europe were clarified in September 2022. All drop goals were worth one point and all play the ball infringements resulted in a set restart. Introduced from the Australian National Rugby League (NRL) was the "captain's challenge" where under certain circumstances a team captain was able to ask for the referee's decision to be reviewed. Head injury assessments and subsequent treatment followed the European model.
A new match review panel comprising members from both the RFL and NRL was established for the tournament to deal with disciplinary issues.
Pre-tournament practice matches took place on 7 and 8 October, the weekend before the first round of group stage matches of the World Cup.
Competing countries were divided into four groups of four teams (groups A to D). Teams in each group played one another in a round-robin, with the top two teams advancing to the knockout stage.
The top 2 teams from each pool advanced to the quarter-finals. All quarter-finalists will automatically qualify for the 2025 Rugby League World Cup.
The year's after the tournament, The Guardian cited the 2021 World Cup as the catalyst for the revival of the international game. The newspaper linked the "renewed sense of optimism" for participating in international rugby league to the return of the Ashes in 2025 and the creation of the Rugby League Pacific Championships.