Quartet of teams one win away from World Cup 2027 qualification
NEWS: Four teams are one win away from claiming the four direct places available to European teams in the World Cup 2027 qualification process.
The semifinalists of this year’s Rugby Europe Men’s Championship will all book their tickets to Australia, and last weekend’s winning teams – Georgia, Romania, Spain and Portugal – are all tantalisingly close to making it through to that stage of the competition.
In Round One, Georgia maintained their near eight-year unbeaten run in the Rugby Europe Men’s Championship with an emphatic 110-0 win over tournament newcomers Switzerland, and they will now be looking to back up that national team record score at home to the Netherlands in Tbilisi in the first of the two Saturday kick-offs.
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An eighth straight victory against the Dutch could guarantee the Lelos a top-two finish in Pool A and a place in the semifinals. Hoping to join them there from the same pool are Spain, who are bidding to appear at a Men’s World Cup for the first time since 1999.
Los Leones began their Rugby Europe Men’s Championship campaign in fine style with a 53-24 win against the Netherlands and are firm favourites to go to Switzerland on Sunday and get the required win.
Like the leading teams in Pool A, Romania and Portugal picked up bonus-point wins in round one and top Pool B.
Romania faced a fierce challenge from Germany in Bucharest before turning a tight 13-10 lead into a 48-10 victory, while Portugal were never entirely safe against Belgium, who they went on to beat 40-30 in a high-scoring game in Lisbon.
The Oaks have another difficult assignment this weekend as they travel to Belgium, who produced one of the biggest upsets in World Rugby Men’s Rankings history when beating Portugal 10-6 in Mons last year.
Qualification this weekend is anything but a formality for David Gérard’s team, although they have come on leaps and bounds since the Frenchman took charge after RWC 2023.
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Meanwhile, Portugal are hoping to make it to back-to-back Men’s Rugby World Cups after impressing at France 2023, and that goal could be realised this weekend if they beat Germany in Lisbon on Sunday.
Wins for the lower-ranked teams make the qualification picture a lot more complicated and will result in the race to Australia 2027 going down to the final round of pool matches.
As first is playing third and second is playing fourth in both pools, technically all eight teams could end the weekend level on five points apiece. In the event of teams being tied on points, the team that has won the match against the other team will be ranked the higher of the two.
For the four teams that do not make it through to the semi-finals of the Rugby Europe Men’s Championship, the dream of playing at Australia 2027 is not completely over because the team that finishes in fifth place will qualify for the Final Qualification Tournament along with three teams from outside of the region.
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