All you need to know ahead of Ireland's 2027 Rugby World Cup draw on Wednesday

02 Dec 2025, 17:41 by Gavan Casey · The42

ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, Ireland will learn who they will face at the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia.

The draw for the tournament — which has been expanded from 20 teams to 24 — will take place in Sydney from 9am Irish time. World Cup-winning All Black Dan Carter and recently retired Australian great James Slipper will lend a hand to proceedings.

Fans in Ireland can watch the draw unfold on World Rugby’s YouTube channel or on RugbyPass TV.

Here’s everything else you need to know ahead of Wednesday’s draw:

With four more teams added for 2027, how will the draw actually work?

The 24 teams will be drawn into six pools of four, labelled from A to F.

In 2027, the top two sides from each pool, as well as the four best third-placed teams, will progress to a knockout round of 16.

Ahead of the draw, the 24 teams have been seeded into four ‘bands’ (or pots, essentially) of six teams. Band 1 consists of the six top seeds. Band 2 consists of the six second seeds. Band 3 consists of the six third seeds. And Band 4 consists of the six lowest-ranked sides. The seedings were determined by World Rugby’s world rankings.

Ireland, currently ranked fourth in the world, are in Band 1 alongside the other top seeds: South Africa, New Zealand, England, France and Argentina.

All six top seeds will be placed into separate pools in the first round of Wednesday’s draw.

They will be joined in their respective pools by one team each from Bands 2-4.

Band 1: South Africa, New Zealand, England, Ireland, France, Argentina
Band 2: Australia, Fiji, Scotland, Italy, Wales, Japan
Band 3: Georgia, Uruguay, Spain, United States, Chile, Tonga
Band 4: Samoa, Portugal, Romania, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, Canada

Currently ranked seventh in the world, tournament hosts Australia are in Band 2. As such, a theoretical pool of death for Ireland would see them face the Wallabies, Georgia from Band 3, and Samoa from Band 4. Conversely, Ireland could wind up in a pool with Japan, Chile and tournament first-timers Hong Kong.

Are the knockout stages already mapped out?

Yes, and the additional knockout round of 16 brings with it a curious quirk: if all six teams from Band 1 finish top of their respective pools, the winners of Pool E and Pool F cannot face a fellow Band 1 team until the semi-final stage.

As such, Pools E and F appear to offer the easiest overall route towards the last four, which is famously uncharted territory for Ireland.

That said, the winners of Pools A, B, C and D will receive the easier round-of-16 draw, at least theoretically: the top sides in those four pools will face the four best third-placed teams. The winners of Pools E and F, meanwhile, will square off against second-placed teams from separate pools.

Last few notes

With four additional teams and an extra knockout round, the 2027 World Cup will consist of 52 total games instead of 48, which has been the case since the 2003 edition in the same host country.

However, the adaptations to the pool stage have allowed World Rugby to shorten the overall duration of the tournament from seven weeks to six, or 50 days to 43.

During the previous iterations at which 20 countries competed, the teams were divided into four pools of five. The uneven number of teams in each pool meant that every side received a fallow week during the pool stage.

This will not be the case in 2027′s 24-team tournament, at which there will be an even number of sides in each pool.

As was the case for South Africa most recently, it will still take seven games to win the World Cup — but with a last-16 knockout tie this time replacing a pool game on the route to ultimate glory.

World Rugby and the local organising committee in Australia will reveal the host stadiums after the draw concludes on Wednesday.

Already confirmed is that the tournament curtain-raiser will feature Australia at Perth Stadium on Friday, 1 October 2027, and the final will be held at Sydney’s 83,000-capacity Accor Stadium on Saturday, 13 November.

The other host cities will be Melbourne, Adelaide, Townsville, Newcastle and Brisbane, the latter of which will also stage the 2032 Olympics.