By Hannah Blackwell
Wales coach Tom Brindle is confident his team can get past Ireland and either Italy or the Netherlands to make it to their first Women’s Rugby League World Cup.
The European qualifiers draw for the 2026 tournament has been completed and sees Ireland and Wales placed together in a group.
Group A will feature Wales as the top seed, Ireland, and either Italy/Netherlands – who will meet in a preliminary qualifying match in April.
Four nations have already qualified – Australia (winners), New Zealand (rtunners-up), England and Papua New Guinea (both semi-finalists), as the four semi-finalists in the previous World Cup in England.
But four places still remain and Bridle said: “Everything over the last few years has been about putting ourselves in the strongest possible position to qualify for the World Cup.
“We took a lot from testing ourselves against France and England in the autumn and we’ll look to put those experiences to best use for these two matches.
“We’ve not played Netherlands before, but we’ve faced both Ireland and Italy over the last couple of years and had positive results.
“We know that whoever we play, we’ll need to make sure we’re the best version of ourselves to achieve our ambition of being the first Wales team to play in a women’s Rugby League World Cup.”
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Group B is made up of France as top seed, Greece, and Serbia.
The winners of each group will qualify for the World Cup, and the second placed nations will meet in a play-off game in October to determine which team represents Europe in the inaugural 2025 World Series, where nations will compete for the final World Cup place.
One nation from Asia Pacific Women’s Rugby League will also qualify for a World Cup place, using up the eight available spots.
The draw was made by David Butler, European Rugby League (ERL) general manager and Andrea Dobson, former England women’s international who made 27 appearances for England and Great Britian and has appeared at four consecutive World Cups before her retirement in 2019.
“It’s amazing to see the growth of the international women’s game,” said Dobson, who was recently added to the Rugby Football League’s Roll of Honour.
“To have so many nations aiming to qualify is very exciting and not something I could have imagined when I started playing. I’d like to wish all good luck for their fixtures and look forward to seeing who progresses.”
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