The 2027 Rugby World Cup draw will be held much closer to the tournament itself, after an early draw prior to the 2034 edition resulted in a lop-sided draw.
The draw for the 2023 World Cup received a lot of criticism after World Rugby took the decision to hold it as early as December 2020, and based on the world rankings at that time.
By the time the tournament came around, the picture at the top of the rankings had changed significantly, resulting in an incredibly lopsided tournament as the top four ranked teams – Ireland, New Zealand, France and South Africa – were all on the same side of the draw.
To avoid a repeat of that situation, the 2027 World Cup draw will now take place before the start of the 2026 Six Nations, presumably in December of this year after the Autumn Nations Series or early January next year.
Unlike the previous World Cup draw, all the teams that will feature in Australia 2027 will be confirmed before pools are drawn.
“The reason why the pool draws were made earlier was because of the surety of the host cities and knowing where teams were going, which is very important,” Beaumont told The Breakdown in July 2023.
“What we will be doing is looking to have the pool draw as late as possible so that you get more consistency around the balance in a pool.
“There’s always going to be one pool which is tougher than the others.
“When we go to Australia, we will be looking at how late we can make the pool draw.”
The new World Cup format will feature six pools of four teams, with a round of 16 added prior to the quarter-finals.
World Rugby explained that the reasoning for this is to enable the tournament window to be reduced from seven to six weeks while promoting a rhythm that builds momentum across the pool phase and respects the same minimum number of rest days between matches as at France 2023.
The rest days were another complaint that arose during the 2023 tournament with Namibia notably playing their fourth and final pool stage match before New Zealand had even played their third game.
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Georgia, Romania, Spain and Portugal have now joined France, New Zealand, Italy, Ireland, champions South Africa, Scotland, Wales, Fiji, Australia, England, Argentina and Japan in securing qualification for RWC 2027 with eight places still yet to be claimed.
The 2025 Rugby Africa Cup champions will secure one of the spots and while that has historically been Namibia’s route to qualification, last year Zimbabwe won the tournament and will aim to make their third World Cup appearance having played in the 1987 and 1991 editions.
