Second-tier European quartet book '27 World Cup berths

NEWS: Portugal and Spain qualified Sunday for the men’s 2027 World Cup in Australia taking Romania and Georgia with them as the quartet reached the semi-finals in the Rugby Europe Championship.

Portugal scored eight tries as they beat Germany 56-14 in Lisbon.

That result ensured that, with one round of games still to play, Portugal and Romania, who won 31-14 in Belgium on Saturday, will finish in the top two places in the four-team Pool B.

Both will advance to the last four in the tournament for Europe’s second-tier nations.

Earlier Sunday, Spain won 43-13 away to Switzerland to create the same scenario in Pool A.

Spain and Georgia, who won 40-7 at home against the Netherlands on Saturday, have two wins from two pool games and will finish in the top two places.

The four losers in the weekend’s matches still have a chance of going to Australia for the World Cup. A fifth berth will be up for grabs in a final qualifying tournament in November.

Georgia and Romania are regular World Cup participants.

Georgia will be going to their seventh consecutive World Cup. They have won five and drawn one of their 24 matches and never finished higher than third in their first-round pool.

Romania has qualified for every World Cup but was barred from playing in Japan in 2019 for fielding an ineligible player in qualifying.

They have never made it out of the pool stages, winning six of their 32 matches.

Ineligible players cost Spain their place at both the 2019 and 2023 World Cups.

Their only other appearance at the finals was in 1999 when they lost all three of their pool matches.

Portugal has qualified twice before for the World Cup.

In 2007 they lost all four games, conceding 108 points to New Zealand, but in France in 2023, they drew with Georgia and beat Fiji.

The expanded 24-team 2027 Rugby World Cup will take place from October 1 to November 13 with Perth hosting the opening match and Sydney the final.

Teams qualified:

Australia (hosts), France, New Zealand, Italy, Ireland, South Africa, Scotland, Wales, Fiji, England, Argentina, Japan, Georgia, Spain, Portugal, Romania