Australia to take on Hong Kong in dreary World Cup curtain-raiser

New Zealand are in Australia’s pool, but the teams will meet in round two at the 83,500-capacity Stadium Australia in Sydney, which hosted the third British & Irish Lions Test last summer, and will stage the World Cup final on November 13, 2027.

World Rugby picked Australia v Hong Kong as the curtain-raiser because their data shows that the opening match always sells out, and they wanted to play the biggest games in the largest stadiums.

England will face Tonga in Brisbane on Saturday October 2, Zimbabwe at the Adelaide Oval the following Friday, then conclude the pool stage against Wales on Saturday October 16 at Stadium Australia.

England’s games are all night-time kick-offs, either beginning at 8.15pm or 7.45pm in Australia, which will be mid-morning back at home.

If England qualify for the knockout stage by winning their pool, they will travel to Perth for the new round of 16, where they could face Italy.

If England progress to the quarter-finals, they may face Australia back in Sydney. The city could stage a weekend of epic rugby — like Paris did in 2023 at the quarter-final stage, when South Africa beat France and New Zealand dumped out Ireland — as the Springboks could meet the All Blacks the day after England’s potential tie against the Wallabies.

Both semi-finals, the third-place play-off and the final are also in Sydney. The other quarter-finals, which could feature France and Ireland, will be in Brisbane.

Wales face Zimbabwe in Adelaide on October 2, which will kick off at 12.15pm local time (2.45am GMT). They will play Tonga in Melbourne on October 8, before meeting England in Sydney.

Ireland and Scotland will play each other in their pool on Sunday October 10 in Perth. That means both teams will have to travel across Australia and spend about ten hours on flights in the space of a week.

Scotland face Uruguay first, on October 3 in Melbourne, and end the pool stage on October 17 against Portugal in Brisbane. Ireland start with Portugal in Sydney on October 4 and finish with Uruguay on October 17 in Brisbane. That Ireland-Uruguay match will kick off at 4.45am GMT.

The pool stage will conclude with what World Rugby are terming a “super Sunday” of five fixtures. However, they could all be seriously one-sided as France play Samoa, South Africa meet Romania, Ireland face Uruguay and Scotland take on Portugal. Italy’s match against Georgia in Newcastle may be the pick of the games on that day.

The pool matches will not be on every day, but will cluster around weekends, as World Rugby wants to maximise attendances. Five matches in the pools will be played on Mondays — including three on October 4, Australia’s Labour Day public holiday. Kick-off times in Queensland venues have been pushed into the evenings to avoid hot and humid, tropical weather.

The biggest stadium in Australia, Melbourne Cricket Ground with more than 100,000 seats, will not be used during the tournament, as there is a deal in place for an NFL match to be played there at a similar time. The smaller Docklands Stadium will be used instead, but not beyond the round of 16.

Melbourne, one of Australia’s great sporting cities, will host eight matches — six pool games (New Zealand v Hong Kong, Argentina v Spain, Scotland v Uruguay, Ireland v Uruguay, France v United States and Wales v Tonga) and two round-of-16 games. Sydney has 13 games and Brisbane ten.

World Rugby chairman Brett Robinson is confident the expanded tournament will deliver. “We’ve assembled the most compelling match schedule to date, carefully designed to balance player welfare, fan experience and global reach,” he said.

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