Draw for Rugby World Cup 2023 to take place after November Tests
THE rugby world rankings will become more important than ever over the next 10 months.
It has been revealed that the draw for the 2023 Rugby World Cup will take place in Paris after the 2020 November Test window.
Wales are one of 12 teams that have already qualified for the next instalment of the global gathering thanks to their placing in the 2019 World Cup pool stage.
Other teams automatically qualified are; champions South Africa, England, New Zealand, Japan, France, Australia, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Argentina and Fiji.
As has been the case in the past, those 12 teams will be seeded based on their world rankings following the November 21-22 cut-off point.
This means that, in his first year in charge, Wayne Pivac will be under added pressure to ensure that Wales’ form does not dip.
The top four in the world will be drawn into separate pools, then teams ranked fifth to eight will be drawn into separate pools before teams ranked 9-12 are allocated a pool.
A poor ranking at the time of the draw is likely to result in a ‘pool of death.’
Wales were outside the top eight in the world at the time of the draw for the 2015 Rugby World Cup. As such they ended up as third seeds for the draw and in the same pool as Australia and England.
Ahead of the draw for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, Wales scraped through at eighth in the rankings and ended up in exactly the same pool as 2015, only England were replaced by Georgia, illustrating how important the seedings are.
Wales are currently fourth in the world rankings. Therefore, if the draw was being made tomorrow Pivac’s side would be top seeds along with South Africa, England and New Zealand, but there is a lot of rugby to be played between now and the end of December.
A challenging Six Nations schedule with away matches in London and Dublin will be followed by a daunting summer tour which includes one match against Japan and two in New Zealand.
The remaining eight teams to participate at the 2023 World Cup will be determined by a global qualification process, which begins later this year.
“With the World Rugby Rankings determining the bands for the RWC 2023 pool draw, it promises to be a fascinating year of men’s international rugby with every match counting towards seeding at the end of the November test series, which is exciting for fans,” said World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont.
The exact date and location for the draw is yet to be announced.
How the world rugby rankings look pre-Six Nations:
South Africa (94.19 points), New Zealand (92.11), England (88.82), Wales (85.02), Ireland (84.45), Australia (81.90), France (80.88), Japan (79.28), Scotland (79.23), Argentina (78.31), Fiji (76.21), Italy (72.04).