Eddie Jones says that the draw for the 2027 Rugby World Cup was \u2018balanced\u2019 despite the outcry of a potential quarter-final between the Springboks and All Blacks.<\/p>\n
New Zealand has been drawn in Pool A alongside Australia, Chile and Hong Kong China, while the back-to-back champions South Africa join Italy, Georgia and Romania in Pool B.<\/p>\n
If the competition\u2019s<\/a> two most successful teams were to top their respective pools and win their round of 16 encounters, they would meet in the last eight, a fact that several fans and pundits have slammed.<\/p>\n World Rugby<\/a> have copped plenty of backlash for the manner in which the draw was done, which allowed for the top two-ranked teams in the world, at the time of the draw, to meet so early in the competition.<\/p>\n \u201cClearing the decks early\u201d<\/p>\n Springboks<\/a> captain Siya Kolisi and head coach Rassie Erasmus weren\u2019t too bothered by the possible meeting with New Zealand in the quarter-finals, with both stating that you have to win all the knockout games anyway.<\/p>\n Jones<\/a> was joined by ex-Wallabies and Reds head coach Ewen McKenzie on the Rugby Unity<\/a> podcast, where they discussed the draw.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the quarter-finals, there are a bunch of potentially key games. So, yes, everyone talks about New Zealand v South Africa, but Argentina v Ireland is another potential one. So, you\u2019re clearing the decks early,\u201d McKenzie said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of teams that are competitive at the moment. So, you got more than it\u2019s very hard just to line up two years out, four teams into the semi-finals.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s going to be some pain somewhere. That\u2019s the nature of the tournament. So you just have to run with it. That\u2019s the point of the tournament. I don\u2019t think you can manipulate the result unless you just hand-pick it based on the rankings and just distribute the top. But where do you start and stop with that? You can just take the top 24 teams and place them into a tournament, but you\u2019d still get problems.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re still going to have issues in two years\u2019 time because the rankings will change again between now and then; that happens every time because we go early. I don\u2019t see an easy pathway into the semis anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n New \u2018zero interest\u2019 Rugby World Cup format dismissed as \u2018absolute dog s***\u2019 by ex-Ireland star<\/a><\/p>\n Scott Robertson weighs in on Rugby World Cup \u2018anomaly\u2019 as World Rugby comes under fire<\/a><\/p>\n Old-fashioned view<\/p>\n Jones agreed, explaining that the competitiveness of international rugby right now means that quarter-finals are no longer \u2018easy\u2019 match-ups as they were in previous World Cups.<\/p>\n \u201cI find it a bit mystical. When you get down to the last eight, they should be tough games, shouldn\u2019t they? What do we expect?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s a bit of an old-fashioned view. You go back probably 15, 20 years in the World Cup, the quarter-finals weren\u2019t difficult games, but now you know the depth of World Rugby has increased, and that\u2019s what we want.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we want games that really test opponents. I think it\u2019s fantastic for the tournament. Obviously not potentially fantastic for Ireland, who I imagine are the ones who\u2019re complaining.\u201d<\/p>\n There is an argument that rugby should adopt seedings like Tennis when drawing the pools for the World Cup.<\/p>\n World Rugby uses bands instead, with the 2027 draw consisting of four bands of six nations, with the teams divided up as per their world rankings.<\/p>\n