{"id":609344,"date":"2025-12-03T10:36:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T10:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/609344\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T10:36:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T10:36:24","slug":"boks-handed-great-start-for-title-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/609344\/","title":{"rendered":"Boks handed great start for title defence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Following Wednesday\u2019s draw in Sydney, the six pools for the Rugby World Cup<\/a> 2027 have now been decided, with reigning champions South Africa<\/a> being drawn in Pool B.<\/p>\n

The four-time champions have been drawn with Italy, Georgia<\/a> and Romania, avoiding the tournament hosts Australia<\/a> in Pool A, which could have been a tricky prospect.<\/p>\n

While the Springboks may feel confident about their pool draw, they are in line to play the winner of Pool A in the quarter-finals, which could potentially be a meeting with either the Wallabies or the All Blacks<\/a>. The Boks would first need to beat third-place in Pools D, E or F in the round of 16 to book that encounter.<\/p>\n

South Africa are aiming for an unprecedented World Cup \u2018three-peat\u2019 and are looking to extend their record of World Cups won to five, moving two ahead of the All Blacks. They are currently ranked number one in the world, with the highest-ranked team in their pool being Italy, who are ranked 10th and recently lost to the Boks 32-14 in the Quilter Nations Series.<\/p>\n

The draw was conducted by World Rugby chair Brett Robinson, double World Cup-winning All Black Dan Carter, former Wallabies captain James Slipper<\/a> and Australia Sevens Olympic gold medal winner Alicia Lucas.<\/p>\n

\"RWC<\/p>\n

The six pools each have four teams in them, comprised of teams from the four bands that are based on the World Rankings.<\/p>\n

South Africa, the All Blacks, England, Ireland, France<\/a> and Argentina<\/a> were in Band 1; Australia, Fiji, Scotland, Italy, Wales<\/a> and Japan<\/a> made up Band 2; Georgia, Spain, Uruguay, USA, Chile<\/a> and Tonga<\/a> were part of Band 3; Samoa, Portugal, Romania, Hong Kong China, Zimbabwe<\/a> and Canada<\/a> completed Band 4.<\/p>\n

Pool A: <\/strong>New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Hong Kong China<\/p>\n

Pool B: <\/strong>South Africa, Italy, Georgia, Romania<\/p>\n

Pool C: <\/strong>Argentina, Fiji, Spain, Canada<\/p>\n

Pool D:\u00a0<\/strong> Ireland, Scotland, Uruguay, Portugal<\/p>\n

Pool E:\u00a0<\/strong> France, Japan, USA, Samoa<\/p>\n

Pool F:\u00a0<\/strong> England, Wales, Tonga, Zimbabwe<\/p>\n

\"RWCThe pools have been drawn for RWC 2027 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following Wednesday\u2019s draw in Sydney, the six pools for the Rugby World Cup 2027 have now been decided,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-609344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115655199122149891","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}