women's

Their joint proposal beat a rival bid from Colombia to host the tournament which is being expanded to 32 teams.

Japan, who had also put forward a bid to stage the event, pulled out on Monday after they were ranked below the joint bid by world governing body FIFA's evaluation report.

The report highlighted the infrastructure and organisational advantages of the Australia/New Zealand bid which FIFA believed would make for a commercially successful tournament.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand was honoured to have been selected as co-hosts.

In hot conditions and with a vocal crowd of supporters, Flies were always the favourites boosted by the experience and skill of PNG Palais players in Cathy Neap and Helen Abau, and took a 10-4 lead at half time.

The lead was pushed out to 14-4 early in the second half when Abau crossed over in the corner.

But the Royals girls hit back immediately from the restart through a barging Naomi Kaupa who proved too hard to stop close to the line.

An unsuccessful conversion left the score at 14-8 with the Royals needing a converted try in the dying minutes to level up.