Women’s Rugby World Cup Pool Draw Live From Belfast

The draw will be streamed live via World Rugby – http://www.rwcwomens.com/. The Women’s Rugby World Cup 2017 in Ireland will feature 12 teams, who will be drawn into three pools or four teams.

The top seven teams from Women’s Rugby World Cup 2014 in France qualified automatically for Ireland 2017. They are: England, Canada, France, Ireland, New Zealand, USA and Australia.

Those seven teams have since been joined by Italy and Wales, who were the top two ranked sides outside of England, France and Ireland across the 2015 and 2016 Women’s Six Nations.

The remaining three qualifiers will be determined by the end of 2016 and they are as follows:  Fiji, Japan and Hong Kong will compete in a three match round-robin tournament to be played over December 9, 13 and 17 in Hong Kong. The top two teams will qualify for WRWC 2017.

The last-placed Six Nations team from the combined 2015 and 2016 rankings, Scotland, will play two matches, home and away, against the winners of the Rugby Europe competition (Spain) on Friday, November 18 in Scotstoun, Glasgow and Saturday, November 26 in Madrid, with the overall winners qualifying for WRWC 2017.

Seeded teams will be placed in bands –

Seeds 1 to 3 will be in band 1 being: England, Canada and France

Seeds 4 to 6 will be in band 2 being: Ireland, New Zealand and USA

Seeds 7 to 9 will be in band 3 being: Australia, Italy and Wales

Seeds 10 to 12 will be in band 4 being: Europe 3, Asia/Oceania 1 and Asia/Oceania 2

The bands will be drawn and placed into Pool A, B and C respectively –

Band 1 will place in A1, B1 and C1 as drawn
Band 2 will place in A2, B2 and C2 as drawn
Band 3 will place in A3, B3 and C3 as drawn
Band 4 will place in A4, B4 and C4 as drawn

The drawing of bands will commence with Band 4 and continue in sequence to finish with Band 1.

For more information please visit: http://www.rwcwomens.com/