The draw for the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia will take place tomorrow and can be watched on RugbyPass or another local broadcaster. This is the first tournament to have 24 teams so things will look a little bit different this time around. To start with, there are 4 more games in a shorter tournament with no workload increase for the players. This is because the pool stage has been shortened to 3 games per team and there is an even number of teams in each pool which means that there is no off week for teams. The top 4 3rd place teams will also qualify for the knockout rounds. Here are the pools as they stand.
Band 1:
South Africa
New Zealand
England
Ireland
France
Argentina
Band 2:
Australia
Fiji
Scotland
Italy
Wales
Japan
Band 3:
Georgia
Uruguay
Spain
USA
Chile
Tonga
Band 4:
Samoa
Portugal
Romania
Hong Kong
Canada
Zimbabwe
Best case scenario by ranking for England
England
Japan
Chile
Hong Kong
Worst case scenario for England
England
Scotland
Georgia
Samoa
Here is what the draw could look like:
Pool A
South Africa
Australia
Tonga
Portugal
Pool B
Argentina
Italy
Uruguay
Hong Kong
Pool C
Ireland
Fiji
USA
Romania
Pool D
New Zealand
Wales
Georgia
Samoa
Pool E
France
Scotland
Spain
Canada
Pool F
England
Japan
Chile
Zimbabwe
In this scenario, England get a comparatively easy group whilst Wales find themselves in yet another nightmare scenario. In a continuation of this scenario, I have labelled the teams by colour: 1st place is blue, 2nd is green, 3rd and through is purple, and the teams that are out will be red. This would lead to the R16 games being:
South Africa vs USA
Argentina vs Georgia
Fiji vs Japan
France vs Wales
Australia vs Scotland
England vs Italy
Ireland vs Spain
New Zealand vs Uruguay
This would lead to 4 exciting games and 4 games including teams that are probably just happy to have made it out of the groups. Whatever the case may be, this is definitely an improvement on the previous tournament formats. Some may find this format unfair because 2 group winners have to play a runner-up whereas the other 4 play 3rd-place finishers. However, that has been evened up by having those 2 group winners play the winners of matches between 2 runners-up whilst the others would play their fellow group winners in the quarter-finals.
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