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As calendars turn from 2024 to 2025, rugby’s attention swings sharply to Rugby World Cup 2027. The year 2025 will see all the competitors finalized for Australia 2027. Attention will be firmly on who can secure remaining places. 2025 will also feature unraveling of venue planning and the tournament draw for Rugby World Cup 2027.
| RUGBY WORLD CUP 2027 QUALIFIERS |
50% of the 24 participants at Rugby World Cup 2027 are already known. Due to finishing 1st, 2nd or 3rd in their respective pools at Rugby World Cup 2003, France, Australia, Argentina, England, Fiji, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Scotland, and Wales do not need to play in qualifying matches.
This leaves twelve spots up for grabs for Australia 2027. All twelve will be confirmed in international competition in 2025. The qualifying pathways are summarized in the following table.
| QUALIFYING REGION | AUTOMATICALLY QUALIFIED | REGIONAL QUALIFYING PATHWAY |
| EUROPE | France, England, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Wales | (4 teams) via 2025 Rugby Europe Championship (Top 4). |
| ASIA | Japan | (1 team) via 2025 Asia Rugby Championship (Champions). |
| AFRICA | South Africa | (1 team) via 2025 Rugby Africa Cup (Champions). |
| OCEANIA + NORTH AMERICA | Australia, Fiji, New Zealand | (3 teams) via 2025 Pacific Nations Cup (excluding Fiji + Japan). |
| SOUTH AMERICA | Argentina | (1 team) Sudamerica Rugby Championship (Champions). |
| SOUTH AMERICA / PNC | – | (1 team) Winner of Sudamerica Rugby 2 vs PNC 6. |
| GLOBAL REPECHAGE | – | (1 team) Final Qualification Tournament. |
The regional qualifiers will be played at different times of the year in 2025. The first to start and finish will be the Rugby Europe Championship. It begins on January 31 with Romania vs Germany. The top four placed teams will qualify for Australia 2027 as Europe 1, Europe 2, Europe 3 and Europe 4. They will be known on March 01 or 02, the Semi Final weekend of the tournament.
Qualifying tournaments across other regions will follow. The tournaments will end in time for the Africa 2 vs Asia 2 play-off and the South America 2 vs PNC 6 play-off. The stage of the two play-off’s will be the final fixtures before global repechage in November, 2025.
The global repechage tournament will be for the 24th, and final, place. The tournament will be a round-robin tournament involving four teams. The top placed side on competition points will qualify for Australia 2027. The four participants will be the winner of Africa 2 vs Asia 2 play-off, the loser of the South America 2 vs PNC 6 play-off, Europe 5, and Sudamerica Rugby 3.
| VENUE PLANNING AND SELECTION |
Indications are that work between Rugby Australia and World Rugby point to a tournament featuring twelve venues. The Wallabies have experience playing in all twelve of the venues.
Twelve venues is an increase from the eleven that were used for Rugby World Cup 2003. The venues are expected to be spread across nine cities. In 2003 this was the case with Sydney having two venues; however, planning for 2027 sees two cities being allocated multiple venues.
Both the Sydney Football Stadium and Stadium Australia will return as Sydney venues. The Western Sydney Stadium will also host matches, giving Sydney three venues.
The second numerical change sees Melbourne having two venues. Docklands Stadium hosted seven matches, including two Quarter Finals, at Rugby World Cup 2003. For 2027 there are three venues in consideration: Docklands Stadium, Rectangular Stadium and the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
The MCG is a possibility to move to final south from Sydney. World Rugby requires 60,000 capacity for the final which means the MCG or Perth are alternatives to Sydney. In addition, either Perth Stadium or the MCG could be used as an alternative to Sydney for the tournament opener as could Brisbane.
The MCG will host the second test match between Australia and the British & Irish Lions in 2025. The stadium has a capacity of 100,024. If promoted successfully, the MCG could break the Rugby World Cup attendance record. The capacity is greater than London’s Wembley Stadium which holds the record of 89,267 for Ireland vs Romania in 2015.
Rugby Australia and World Rugby are currently finalizing the venues. An official announcement will be made in February, 2025. Indications are that the announcement will come without three host cities from Rugby World Cup 2003: Hobart, Gosford and Wollongong.
Australia’s eight largest cities are all to host matches: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Gold Coast, Newcastle and Canberra. The other host city will be Townsville. Of them only Gold Coast and Newcastle did not host matches at Rugby World Cup 2003.
Concerns have been raised about the state of the facilities at Canberra Stadium. This has not got in the way of the Canberra venue being among the twelve venues for Australia 2027. Canberra last hosted a Wallabies test match in 2017.
| CITY | VENUE | CAPACITY | LAST HOSTED WALLABIES |
| Sydney | Stadium Australia | 82,000 | vs New Zealand (2024) |
| Sydney | Sydney Football Stadium | 42,500 | vs Georgia (2024) |
| Sydney | Western Sydney Stadium | 30,000 | vs Argentina (2023) |
| Newcastle | Newcastle International Sports Centre | 30,000 | vs Argentina (2020) |
| Brisbane | Lang Park | 52,500 | vs South Africa (2024) |
| Gold Coast | Robina Stadium | 27,690 | vs Argentina (2021) |
| Townsville | North Queensland Stadium | 25,000 | vs Argentina (2021) |
| Canberra | Bruce Stadium | 25,011 | vs Argentina (2017) |
| Melbourne | MCG * | 100,024 | vs New Zealand (2023) |
| Melbourne | Docklands Stadium* | 53,343 | vs New Zealand (2022) |
| Melbourne | Rectangular Stadium* | 30,050 | vs Wales (2024) |
| Adelaide | Adelaide Oval | 53,500 | vs South Africa (2022) |
| Perth | Perth Stadium | 61,266 | vs South Africa (2024) |
* Rugby Australia will select 2 of the 3 Melbourne venues.
| DRAW |
The draw for Rugby World Cup 2027 will be made between the end of the 2025 November Internationals and the start of the 2026 Six Nations. The time frame has been chosen to fall after all twenty-four teams for the tournament are known. World Rankings will be used to seed teams into bands for the rankings.
Teams will be in search of rankings gains in order to increase their chances of a favorable draws. Australia is presently ranked 8th in the world. This should mean that Australia is outside of the first band of teams ranked 1st to 6th. However, Will Kelleher reports that, as hosts, Australia will be positioned in the first band.
The expanded tournament will see the introduction of a Round-of-16. The pool winners and runners-up will all advance as will four teams who finish third in their pools. The Round-of-16 will add eight elimination matches and adds not only to the importance of the draw but also to venue planning.
