The next edition of the World Cup may still be two years away but anticipation is already building as with the draw for the competition to be held tonight in Japan.
Here’s your complete guide to the 2019 Rugby World Cup draw, including when and where it is, and how you can watch it.
When is it?
The draw will take place on Wednesday, May 10 and is scheduled to get underway at 6pm (AEST), or 5pm local time in Kyoto, Japan.
For those across the ditch in New Zealand, it will be an 8pm start.
Despite still being two years out from the tournament, the draw will actually be taking place at a later date than originally intended. More time was afforded to nations to settle into a more accurate ranking and band system leading into the draws.
How to watch
The Roar will have complete coverage of the draw with our live blog of the announcement as well as a Roar Live special with Roar experts Spiro Zavos and Geoff Parkes reacting to the draw.
Otherwise, your best bet is to jump onto the World Rugby website for their live stream of the event, which you can find here.
What is it?
The draw will decide what teams fit into what pools for the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan that gets underway on September 20, 2019, running for over a month with the final being held on November 2.
The draw will be overseen and conducted by a range of World Rugby officials and Japanese icons including World Rugby Chairman Bill Beaumont and Japanese rugby legend Yoshihiro Sakata.
Also on the panel will be defending champions New Zealand coach Steve Hansen and three-time Japanese Olympic gold-medalist wrestler Saori Yoshida.
Where is it?
It’s being held at the host nation inside the renowned Kyoto State Guest House as a precursor to the tournament in 2019.
This will be the first time that a Rugby World Cup draw is held outside of Europe as Japan continue to showcase themselves to the rugby community.
How will it work?
As has been the case for a few World Cups now, there will be four pools containing five teams each, making it a 20-team tournament.
Prior to the draw, each team is placed into one of four bands that are determined by current ranking. The better the side the higher the band a team is in.
The 12 teams that finished in the top three of their group in the 2015 World Cup have already qualified for the 2019 tournament, and have been placed in the top three bands:
Band 1: New Zealand, England, Australia and Ireland
Band 2: Scotland, France, South Africa and Wales
Band 3: Argentina, Japan, Georgia, Italy
The remaining two bands are made up of eight yet-to-be-determined teams who have to go through a qualification process:
Band 4: Oceania 1, Americas 1, Europe 1 and Africa 1
Band 5: Oceania 2, Americas 2, Play-off winner, Repechage winner
A single pool is then made up of five sides, one randomly selected from each band.
System of a Downey Jr
Roar Rookie
With Argentina in band 3 we could easily have another pool of death.
PeterK
Roar Guru
ok thanks for that, didn't realise that. That also explains why Georgia qualified. So Fiji suffers twice by being in the pool of death and finishing 4th in their pool.
Celtic334
Guest
Actually Italy qualified for coming 3rd in their pool at the last World Cup
PeterK
Roar Guru
What is interesting is that the PI countries are hard done by. Italy seems to qualify just because it is part of the 6n's so it does not have to qualify around that tournament. Georgia also gets a leg up. Fiji is ranked 10 at the time of the draw and should be an automatic entry in band 3 and Italy, ranked 15, drop off. Failing that Georgia ranked 12 should drop out. Fiji ranked 10, Tonga ranked 13, Samoa ranked 14 all ahead of Italy,