The month long spectacular that is the 2017 Rugby League World Cup gets underway on Friday morning when co-hosts Australia take on the old enemy, England at the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium.

 This is just the first of twenty-eight matches to be played over thirty-six days at twelve venues in three countries culminating in the World Cup Final on the 2nd December at the Brisbane Stadium.

Fourteen sides are competing to lift the Trophy as; Australia, England, New Zealand, France, Scotland, Wales, Fiji, Lebanon, Samoa, Tonga, Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Italy and the United States all join the jamboree, and RLFANS.COM will be the place to follow all the action.

 As well as the Australia v. England curtain raiser, the first round of games includes; Papua New Guinea v. Wales, New Zealand v. Samoa, Fiji v. United States, Ireland v. Italy, France v. Lebanon and Scotland v. Tonga.

 All matches in the competition will be played on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and due to the time differences they will kick off between 4:05am and 10:05am UK time, so you’ll need to be an early bird and ready for a marathon with three matches being played back to back during the Saturday round stages.

 Australia are the odds on favourites for World Cup glory and the best odds around are 1/4. England and New Zealand are equal second favourites at 7/1 with Tonga an outside bet at 16/1. The rest of the field are 40/1 or longer odds of lifting the silverware, but you can get 25/1 on Samoa and 33/1 on Fiji to make the final. The shortest odds for tournament top try scorer are Valentine Holmes (7/1) and Dane Gagai and Josh Mansour (both 8/1). Jermaine McGillvary and Ryan Hall are both 20/1 bets.

 We will be bringing you match reports on the final hooter of every game and will provide live score updates for the games broadcast live, and delayed ‘live’ scores for games shown on delay. The Virtual Terrace forum is doubling up as our World Cup discussion board for the duration of the competition and you can go there to give your opinion on the action.

 Make RLFANS.COM your first stop for World Cup coverage and discussion.