The Canadian Wolverines and Malta Knights are set to be the top two seeded teams at next year’s Emerging Nations World Championship following the recent World Rankings announcement by the RLIF.
The current World Number 17 (Canada) and 18 (Malta) ranked teams, both the Wolverines and Knights will head into just the third iteration of the International Rugby League tournament as the benchmark the other participating sides will be looking to meet.
Determined to live up to their current rankings, both nations will partake in a series of warm-up matches in the lead up to the tournament, with the Knights heading to Sydney in early February / March to play a series of internationals, whilst the Wolverines will play the USA and Jamaica in the annual Americas Cup.
The third Rugby League Emerging Nations World Championship is set to take place in Western Sydney in October 2018, featuring up to 16 national representative teams.
Currently 11 nations have been announced for the tournament, including 23rd ranked Greece, 24th ranked Philippines and 29th ranked Hungary.
The remaining teams for the Emerging Nations World Championship will be announced in early 2018, with a series of ranked and unranked national representative teams vying for a spot.
