2017 World Cup Qualification

The Qualification competition for the 2017 Rugby League World Cup saw the best teams in Europe, Americas, Africa and the Middle East vie for five places in Australia and New Zealand.

The road to the World Cup began with a playoff between Latvia and Spain in Riga in May 2015 and took in qualifying tournaments in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East & Africa.

After two previous near-misses, Lebanon qualified from Middle East & Africa after a resounding two-legged win against South Africa.

In the Americas Competition, it was the USA who emerged victorious from a tightly contested round robin group after close fought victories over emerging forces Canada and Jamaica, countries who will build towards 2021.

In Europe, it was a mixture of new, emerging and established countries that took on the European Qualifying Competition, with Spain and Latvia kicking off the entire Qualifying campaign.

European B and C competitions in 2015 saw games played across the continent, including a notable game between Russia and Ukraine played in Belgrade, and finished with Serbia, Russia, Italy and Spain qualify for the final tournament, joining European Superpowers Ireland and Wales in two groups and with three places at stake.

In Group A, the final game proved the decider after both Italy and Wales had triumphed against Serbia, who were competitive, but lacked sufficient firepower to keep up with two teams full of professional players.

It was Wales who qualified after a tense and close win in Padova against Italy.

In Group B, Ireland showed their class to easily qualify after putting 122 points on the board against Spain and Russia, leaving the other game in the group to decide second place and a playoff in Leigh against Italy.

It was Russia who won out against Spain and they took on Italy for the final place in the World Cup in the playoff match, a game that proved a game too far for Russia as Italy ran in 14 tries to qualify for their second World Cup