Feasts... then famine: How World Rugby made a bags of the RWC draw

That they're 'hoping' to make the 2027 draw closer to the tournament is as close as you'll get to an admission that the messed up this time

LOP-SIDED: There are a lot of sharks swimming in the waters of Pool A and Pool B for the 2023 Rugby World Cup

World Rugby Chairman Bill Beaumont recently reiterated that the draw for the 2023 Rugby World Cup was made so early – back in December 2020 – “because of the surety of the host cities and knowing where teams were going, which is very important”.

It has always sounded like a flimsy argument when you consider that the draw for the football World Cup – with over 50 per cent more teams, more than twice as many fans and therefore a far bigger logistical challenge – typically takes place six to seven months before the tournament kicks off.

And with no team in this Rugby World Cup playing more than two pool games in the same city, the idea that we needed to know who had been drawn against who almost three years out from the event really doesn’t wash.

Cynical Scots suspect the draw – which was based on the World Rankings on January 1, 2020 when they were a lowly ninth in the table following their 2019 pool stage flop – was some sort of revenge for Chief Executive Mark Dodson’s outspoken comments about World Rugby's handling of Typhoon Hagibis during the Japan tournament, for which he was slapped with £70,000 fine. As PG Wodehouse once said: “It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.” 

Tellingly, Beaumont promised in the same interview last month that: “When we go to Australia [in 2027], we will be looking at how late we can make the pool draw.” 

This is as close as you’ll get to an admission that World Rugby have made a right pig’s ear of this year’s event, having ended up in a situation where you have the first (Ireland), third (South Africa) and fifth (Scotland) ranked teams in the world in one pool, and the second (New Zealand) and fourth (France) ranked teams in another pool, with the winner and runners-up of each of those pools set to face each other in the first round of knock-out matches - meaning that at least three of the five top teams on the planet will be on their way home – no matter what – before the semi-final stage.

Furthermore, World Rugby’s desire to give the tier one nations as much scope as possible to be at their absolute best for their biggest games means that almost all the big pool matches are being played on the opening weekend, with a few left over at the end of the pool schedule, and a barren spell of around a month in between.

The opening weekend bonanza of big games includes a mouth-watering curtain-raiser in Paris next Friday night between hosts France and bookies favourites New Zealand, struggling England (6th in the world) against dangerous Argentina (7th) in Marseilles on Saturday, and South Africa v Scotland to finish off the weekend, also in Marseilles, late on Sunday afternoon.

As if that wasn't enough to get any red-blooded rugby fan salivating in anticipation, there are two more matches offering bags of intrigue to fantasise about when Australia (ranked 8th) take on up-and-coming Georgia (11th) in Paris next Saturday evening and when Wales (9th) face Fiji (10th) in Bordeaux on Sunday evening.

But thereafter the pickings are bare until the next tier one showdown a full fortnight later between Ireland and South Africa at Stade de France on September 23 – and things don't really hot up again until France take on Italy in Lyon on Friday October 6, followed by Wales doing battle with Georgia in Nantes, England facing Samoa in Lille and, of course, Ireland tackling Scotland in Paris all on Saturday October 7, with Japan-Argentina in Nantes on the Sunday.

What a shame it is that a lack of foresight and some shameless pandering to the traditional powerhouses means that there is a real feast-or-famine feel to this fixture schedule which really didn't need to be there.