Story by[BBC]BBCTue, December 2, 2025 at 10:03 AM UTC·4 min readThe draw for the pool stage of the 2027 Rugby World Cup will take place on Wednesday, 3 December at 09:00 GMT in Sydney. The tournament, which will be staged in Australia from 1 October to 13 November, will be expanded from 20 to 24 teams. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe 12 teams that finished in the top three of their pools at the 2023 Rugby World Cup have automatically qualified. That means France, New Zealand, Italy, Ireland, South Africa, Scotland, Wales, Fiji, Australia, England, Argentina and Japan are all in. Georgia, Spain, Romania, Portugal, Tonga, Canada, United States, Uruguay, Chile, Zimbabwe, Hong Kong and Samoa all booked their places through qualifying tournaments. The opening match of the World Cup will take place in Perth, with the final being staged in Sydney. How does the draw work?South Africa top the World Rugby men's rankings and go into the tournament in 2027 as defending champions []Teams are seeded from one to 24 based on their world ranking at the time of the draw in December. They are then placed in four bands of six teams. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementEach pool will have one team from each of the four bands. The World Cup format added extra incentive for teams in the autumn internationals as teams looked to gain a late rise up the rankings and improve their seeding. Australia are guaranteed to be in Pool A as hosts, but will face a top seeded team as they are not in the top six of the world rankings. What are the current seedings?Band 1: South Africa, New Zealand, England, Ireland, France, ArgentinaBand 2: Australia, Fiji, Scotland, Italy, Wales, JapanBand 3: Georgia, Uruguay, Spain, United States, Chile, TongaBand 4: Samoa, Portugal, Romania, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, CanadaAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhat is the format?The top two teams from each pool will progress to the round of 16 along with the four best third-place nations.