With the draw set to take place in December, interest is building ahead of the 2027 Rugby World Cup finals in Australia, where the Springboks will be gunning for an unprecedented third consecutive title.
Since winning their second title in a row in 2023, the Boks have continued to impress, and a dazzling array of new stars are lining up to take over from the old guard.
When the Springboks bagged their first back-to-back Rugby Championship titles by beating Argentina in London earlier this month, they reinforced their claim to being the team to beat in Australia.
The World Cup will come into sharp focus when the draw for the global extravaganza takes place on December 3, and the match schedule is announced in January.
The 2027 edition is set to be the biggest yet, with 52 matches being played across seven host cities and the Optus Stadium in Perth hosting the opening clash involving the Wallabies.
In previous tournaments, going back to 2003, there were traditionally 20 teams divided into four pools of five teams.
The top two teams from each pool then progressed to the quarterfinals, which was the first round of the knockouts.
In 2027, there will be six pools with four teams in each, and the top two teams from each of the pools will progress to the round of 16, while the four best third-place teams will also progress.
The 12 teams that finished in the top three of their pools at Rugby World Cup 2023 have automatically qualified to play in Australia.
They are France, New Zealand, Italy, Ireland, SA, Scotland, Wales, Fiji, Australia, England, Argentina and Japan.
The 12 remaining places are reserved for teams that qualified through various tournaments, including this year’s Rugby Europe Championship and Rugby Africa Cup.
Eleven of those teams are Georgia, Spain, Romania, Portugal, Tonga, Canada, the US, Uruguay, Chile, Zimbabwe and Hong Kong China.
Once the 24 teams are confirmed, they are seeded from 1 to 24 based on their World Rugby rankings at the time of the draw.
Only time will tell whether bigger equates to better when the world’s best players gather to fight it out for rugby’s biggest prize.
The Herald
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