2023 RWC Buildup, Squads, Fixtures 'etc'

"There is zero reason to do the draw before the 2026 autumn internationals"

In fairness there are lots of good reasons to do an early draw - it helps with both selling international packages and with selling tickets to locals. It allows the organisers flexibility on pricing strategies - whilst prices never officially change, what does happen is that tickets can change category. The game that is selling well you shift tickets up a category - the game selling slowly you can move tickets down a category.

Whether these financial reasons trump the sporting equality case for having the draw as late as possible is the debate. Whilst I hate the early draw I think it's folly to ignore that there are valid reasons for it.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if its done as late as 2026 Autumn Internationals which would mean early December 2026. Realistically by late summer 2026 people are planning their 2027 holidays. Rugby really wants people to be focussing on organising trips to Australia at that stage, not booking 2 weeks in California, Marbella or where-ever. Having a full schedule of fixtures is essential to organise trips.

I'd reckon after the 2025 AIs or at the latest after the 2026 6Ns.

I'd imagine you are the exception rather than the rule.

Nobody or very few would be in a position to decide on a whim to go to a match on the other side of the planet.

If you are considering going you'll have done it a long way out.

A firm date for the draw and the majority would hold off making plans until they see the draw.

@ArmaniJeanss Just to add a personal view. I have family in Aus and a visit is long on the cards. I will make a decision to go to the World Cup after the 6 nations next year. I want to see how we rebuild and if we are looking like being in contention again.

The specifics of the draw won't matter until much later. I will be planning on going.

Meh, I'm not suggesting 3/4 years out. I'm predicting the draw to be made in late 2025 this time, so roughly 2 years beforehand. I'm just basing this from what I've seen of the process over the last few years, the marketing that needed to be done, the way the ticket releasing worked, the co-operation with package sellers/corporates etc.

Interesting debate anyway, more interesting than last nights semi-final.

Was thinking cricket, it’s one big group but still as for where each team is playing and when, tickets went on sale fairly recently.

Just think there’s practically no benefit to anything further out than a year.

The organisers should have all the matches and locations planned out by then, they don’t need to know the specific teams for that. It should also be planned in a way that groups teams in the same group in one area to have it handy for fans to go to multiple games(especially in Australia).

So all fans really need to know is where their team is going to play, and 10 months is plenty of time to sort that out. Knowing which team is playing where 2 years out doesn’t automatically mean more tickets or bigger attendance.

And WR should really be looking at the fact that the semi finals, which should be massive games, are essentially 2 dead rubbers, which is a situation they will surely want to avoid in future.

You are looking at one side of it. The speed everywhere from New Zealand was incredible. The organisation is brilliant.

There is no holes in that team right now.

Ireland are the only team really close to them in my opinion.

They beat them easily enough in the Rugby Championship in the summer.

Don't mind that game in Twickenham. One side looking for a confidence boosting win before the World Cup, the other deciding they were giving nothing away that close to the tournament.

There will be a lot of unattractive looking games in a RWC involving teams that also won't have a lot of travelling support. Based on this World Cup's fixtures I'm thinking of the Italy v Uruguay v Namibia trilogy, Portugal v Georgia stuff like that. Maybe 12-15 of the 40 group fixtures need graft. The expectation would be that the smaller grounds in Canberra, Townsville, Newcastle & Gold Coast would be used for these games but there's still 25K-30K capacity to be sold.

I accept you personally would go to any game if you happened to live in Townsville. However the reality is that these games aren't an easy sell to an Australian public for whom Rugby Union may now be down to number 3 or 4 on the sport they follow. So a long lead-in time helps.

The on-going CWC has been mentioned. To me that's an example of a sport/organisation getting it completely wrong by leaving it far too late to clarify venues/fixtures and blithely assuming that locals would go because it's cricket and Indians love cricket. So they've ended up with some group games with 10K attendance in 50K venues (in cities with populations of 5 million). I wonder if they wish they'd had 18 month lead time to do a marketing campaign in England/Australia/NZ and also locally, work with package companies and corporates etc.

What do you mean "other" team we out played. Do you think we outplayed NZ?