RWC 2015 draw: England drawn with Wales and Australia in 'Group of death'
Rugby World Cup 2015 draw: England drawn with Wales and Australia in 'Group of death'
England have drawn the Pool of death in their own World Cup in 2015 with current Grand Slam champions Wales and world ranked three side Australia among the opponents.
RUGBY WORLD CUP 2015
Pool A: Australia, England, Wales, Oceania 1, play-off winner.
Pool B: South Africa, Samoa, Scotland, Asia 1, Americas 2.
Pool C: New Zealand, Argentina, Tonga, Europe 1, Africa 1.
Pool D: France, Ireland, Italy, Americas 1, Europe
Their Pool a will also include the to qualifier from the Oceania qualifying process - almost certainly Fiji - and the winner of the repechage play-off early in 2015.
England, as host, are expected to play most of their game at Twickenham but Australia might not be best pleased at the prospect of travelling to Cardiff for their crunch game against Wales as is currently the plan.
Holders New Zealand have fared very will with Argentina providing the main opposition in their Pool C although their encounter with Tonga will be a fiery one. The top qualifiers from the Europe zone - typically Georgia or Romania - and the qualifiers from Africa complete that pool. New Zealand will possibly have mixed emotions about this pool - a similarly soft pool at the 2007 World Cup in France saw them emerge ill-prepared for their quarter-final against France in Cardiff.
Ireland find themselves in a strongly European accented Pool D with France and Italy their main rivals. Europe 2 - again probably either Georgia or Romania although Portugal and Spain could come into the equation - are the fourth side in the pool along with Americas 1 which tends to be either USA or Canada.
Finally Pool B features the Samoan and South Africa - regularly world Cup combatants going head to head again - with Scotland needing to up their game considerably if they are to live with those two sides physically. Asia 1 - normally Japan - will be the fourth side and America 2 - either USA or Canada - are likely to complete the group.
After the draw, England coach Stuart Lancaster said: "It is definitely a pretty tough pool. To win the World Cup you have to win big games and I have got a huge amount of respect for what Wales have done recently. We know their squad pretty well, it is a young side and a lot of them will still be around in 2015. Australia have just beaten us and if you look at the age and profile of their squad, they have got some young lads as well. We will look forward to it."
"It is unbelievably exciting. Twelve months ago I went out to New Zealand for two weeks and got a little sample of what it is like and the impact on that country. "We have seen what the Olympic Games did for our country and the next big sporting event is the 2015 Rugby World Cup. By that time everybody is going to be revved up and it's going to be a big party."
Meanwhile, Sam Warbuton said: "We had a group of death in the last World Cup so we are used to the situation. It's a fascinating pool. Wales against Australia has always been a good game.
"As for England v Wales, there is enough rivalry there without it being the World Cup. From a players' point of view we are guaranteed to play in front of a packed house against England which is really exciting."
The Winners of England's pool A will play runners-up of pool B in the quarter-finals and the runners up of Pool a will play the winner of Pool B. The winners of Pool C will play the runners- up in Pool D while the runners up in C will meet the winners of Pool D
The draw was made this afternoon at the Tate Modern with the three tiers of pre-qualified teams being calculated on IRB world rankings of today. It is traditionally done this early to allow organisers to work out where the travelling fans will be and when and for official travel firms to block book hotels in the region but, so far out, is hostage to fortune to a certain extent to fluctuating form.
