Looking ahead: RWC 2023
As the Six Nations has come to its conclusion, teams are already looking ahead in preparation for the Rugby World Cup 2023 (RWC2023). We’ve also taken a look ahead and will be highlighting how the RWC2023 Pools stand as of today, as well as the routes to qualification for the remaining 4 spots.
With a focus on Tier 2 nations, we highlight their path as well as take a brief look at the teams that are most likely to book their place in France 2023.
France 2023 is shaping to be one of the most competitive RWC’s of all time.
Firstly, a look at the pools as they stand. Spain, Uruguay and Georgia have all recently bagged their respective Pool spots and will now be focusing solely on their RWC2023 preparation. Whilst Georgia have become a regular fixture at the Rugby World Cup, Spain has qualified for just the second time in their history, and Uruguay will be making their third consecutive trip after debuting at RWC2015.
Spain
Spain made headlines just over a fortnight ago when they beat Portugal in the Rugby Europe Championship (REC) to historically book their place at the RWC2023 directly as Europe 2. This means that Los Leones will be making their first visit to the RWC since 1999, and there's a lot of reason to be excited about them. The Spanish are currently 15th in the World Rugby Rankings, and their U20s side have been making headlines. They’ve won four of their last six fixtures, including beating all of their Rugby Europe Championship rivals bar Georgia, the other loss coming to Fiji in 2021.
In their first RWC since 1999 Spain will be in an extremely difficult Pool together with the World Champions South Africa, Triple Crown Winners Ireland, Scotland, and an Asia/Pacific 1 side yet to be decided but very likely to be Tonga. Los Leones will be relying on a number of experienced campaigners who ply their trade in the French Pro D2 such as Guillaume Rouet (Scrum-Half, Bayonne), Manuel Ordas (Fly-Half, Bayonne) and Álvar Gimeno (Centre, Béziers Hérault), but it will be difficult for this side to achieve more than a losing bonus point - having said that, they’ve proven that they shouldn’t be counted out and who knows if they can shock the world one more time on an even bigger stage.
Uruguay
Whilst Spain took the headlines this month, Uruguay had already booked their third consecutive visit to RWC2023. Los Teros have been climbing up the World Rugby Rankings and the quality of their side is starting to seriously turn heads. They qualified by beating the USA in a two-leg series in October 2021, which was followed by an encouraging display against Italy in the Autumn Nations Cup. Los Teros fought brilliantly and almost eked out a draw at the death if it wasn’t for a try-saving tackle by Paolo Garbisi. The valiant defensive display still earned them a losing bonus point eventually succumbing 17-10 to the Italians in Parma, Italy.
Uruguay’s revolution began in 2014 under Pablo Lemoine (now Chile Head Coach) when they managed to qualify for RWC 2015, but they have hit new levels since appointing Esteban Meneses. Los Teros beat Fiji through meticulous preparation and build-up (Squidge providing an excellent breakdown of Uruguay’s success) at the 2019 RWC and put Georgia, Australia and especially Wales under extreme difficulty.
Now that they’ve secured their Americas 1 spot in Pool A, they will be preparing to meet France, New Zealand, Italy and the Africas 1 side in just 18 months time. Meneses’ side will also be touring to the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’ and playing a two-test series against Japan on the 18th and 25th June .
Keeping an eye on Los Teros during their Summer Tour to Japan will be crucial in gauging what their ambitions will be at the RWC. The key players to keep an eye on will be back rowers Santiago Civetta and Manuel Diana, as well as utility back Nicolas Freitas - all key contributors in the qualification wins and especially impressive against Italy. Felipe Etcheverry is also a young fly-half that demands attention, as he will be looking to take on from Felipe Berchesi’s excellent example. Not to mention some of the key 2019 RWC contributors such as Wing/Fullback Rodrigo Silva and ball-carrying inside centre Andres Vilaseca. Undoubtedly Los Teros will be hungry to fight for that third spot and guarantee their participation at the 2027 RWC!
Uruguay Qualified celebrating direct qualification after beating the USA Eagles 50-34 on aggregate in Montevideo.
Georgia
Georgia unsurprisingly took their spot as Europe 1 by winning the Rugby Europe Championship (2021 and 2022 combined standings). The Lelos have consistently been the best Tier 2 nation and have shown on a number of occasions that they are capable of making the leap into the territory of Japan, Italy and Fiji. With Wales, Australia and Fiji once again in their Pool, they’ll be looking to take their 2019 experience and go one step further in their quest for the third spot and automatic qualification to RWC2027.
Their recent results in their path to RWC2023 show promise. In 2021, they drew to Fiji in a one-off test match in Madrid 15-15, followed by a valiant loss to France in the Autumn Nations Cup series 41-15. In 2022, they have continued their Tier 2 dominance having just won the Rugby Europe Championship for the 10th time in the last 11 tournaments.
In addition to this, a number of Georgian stars have been plying their trade at some of the best clubs in Europe for a number of years, and this has translated to The Lelos consistently showing their capabilities on the international stage. With the likes of Beka Gorgadze (no.8) at Pau, Giorgi Kveseladze (Centre) at Gloucester, as well as the young halves duo of Vasil Lobohanidze (Scrum-Half) and Tedo Abzhandaze (Fly-Half) pairing at CA Brive in the Top 14, there is a strong base from which this Georgian team will be launching its RWC quest.
Georgia has constantly been improving and with a new young crop, Coach Levan Maisashvili will be looking to guide this team to their best RWC finish yet, which would add even more weight to the clamours for their inclusion in more and more Tier 1 fixtures.
Georgia are in Pool C with the likes of Wales, Australia and Fiji plus the Final Qualifier Winner (qualification explained below) likely to be one between Romania, USA or Chile. The Lelos will no doubt be targeting that 3rd spot which would guarantee automatic qualification to the 2027 RWC.
Georgia v Spain | Rugby Europe Championship 2022 Highlights
Moving on from those already qualified, we take a deeper look at the 4 remaining spots that still need to be filled. Pool A will see the Africa Cup Winner take up the Africa 1 spot. In Pool B, the winner of Tonga vs the, still to be decided, Asia Rugby Championship (ARC) winner will join as the Asia/Pacific 1 team. Pool C has the Final Qualifier Winner, which will be decided based on a repechage tournament between Romania (already qualified for the Final Qualifier Tournament through their 3rd place finish in the REC) and the losers of the respective Africa 1, Asia/Pacific 1 and Americas 2 playoff matches. Lastly, Pool D will have the winner of a two-leg play-off between Chile and the USA join them, the loser of which has a second chance in the Final Qualifier Tournament.
Pool A
Pool A will see the Africa Cup winner joining them. The likes of Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda & Senegal all qualified first in their respective groups, but bar any surprises Namibia should comfortably confirm their place at RWC2023 for the 7th time. Namibia have participated in the previous 6 editions of the RWC, since then they have only managed to play two Friendlies in which they defeated Kenya and Zimbabwe both in November 2021. Burkina Faso, Algeria, Kenya and Ivory Coast all qualified second in their group and will all be looking to make their first edition of the RWC bar the Ivory Coast who will be looking to return to the world stage for the first time since 1995. The loser of the Africa Cup Final will have a second bite at the cherry as they will participate in the Final Qualifier Tournament which, if they were to win it, would see them land in Pool C.
Pool B
The winner of a playoff match between the Asia Rugby Championship (ARC) Winner & Tonga, will be joining Pool B. We expect Tonga to beat the likes of Hong Kong, South Korea or Malaysia regardless of who emerges as victors from the ARC.
The Asian Rugby Championship will now take place in May 2022 after originally being scheduled to take place last year. Hong Kong are favourites to win and therefore pose the greatest threat to Tonga’s World Cup hopes. Hong Kong are ranked 22nd in World Rugby, just 6 places behind Tonga. Asian rugby has certainly been impacted by COVID the heaviest with no team outside of Japan playing an international fixture since 2019. Those most recent fixtures back in 2019 saw Hong Kong beat both South Korea and Malaysia twice, scoring 212 points across the 4 games. Given that Asian Rugby has been unable to operate fluidly, it seems that Tonga should be able to handle the winner of the ARC quite comfortably, but in a knockout final, stranger things have happened!
Tonga have participated in 7 fixtures since the conclusion of the 2019 World Cup, including playing the likes of England, New Zealand and Scotland. All 7 of those fixtures have resulted in losses, including the 2 playoff matches against Samoa that now sees them in this position. The two-legged affair with Samoa in July 2021 was an opportunity to qualify for RWC2023 directly in Pool D. Tonga’s 78-29 aggregate loss in those contests is what sees them having to play the winner of the ARC for World Cup qualification. Nonetheless, Tonga have been playing at a Tier above their Asian rivals and their losses have come against Tier 1 opposition, so they should be able to handle all of the ARC opponents comfortably.
Pool C
Pool C will have the Winner of the Final Qualifier Tournament join them. Romania are already in the tournament having come 3rd in the REC, the rest of the teams will be the Runners Up of the Africa Cup final, the loser of the match between Tonga and the Winner of the ARC and lastly, the aggregate loser of USA vs Chile. This will be a round-robin tournament played in November 2022 to decide the final RWC2023 spot.
We are expecting the make-up of this tournament to include either Kenya or Zimbabwe from the Africa Cup, Hong Kong or South Korea from the Asia/Pacific Playoff and the USA from the Americas 2 play-off (Vamos Los Condores!).
Pool D
The Winner of the Play-off two-leg match between Chile’s Los Condores and the USA Eagles will qualify directly into Pool D, joining England, Japan, Argentina and Samoa.
Chile are striving for their first-ever RWC qualification, and have been hugely impressive over the last 18-months. Chile have been on a prominent rise, they beat Canada, perennial RWC qualifiers, in an epic two-leg play-off series that has now given them two chances to qualify for their first edition of the Webb Ellis Cup. Thanks to Squidge Rugby, we’ve all had an insight on Chile’s progression (If you haven’t watched his video, do yourself a favour and watch it). Under the tutelage of former Uruguay Head Coach Pablo Lemoine, Chile have already made record-breaking progress as it stands, but they’ll be looking to go one step further and qualify outright for RWC2023. The youth of this side, an average age of 24 years, makes one believe that if they don’t make it this time around they’ll be back in 2027, but the current crop have already shown the capability of punching above their weight.
USA will be looking to guarantee their RWC spot having made every edition of the Rugby World Cup aside from 1995. USA find themselves still fighting for a spot having fallen to Uruguay across two legs in October 2021. The 50-34 aggregate victory saw Uruguay cement their place into Pool A, leaving the USA with work to do. The Americans now face a resurgent Chilean side across two legs in July to keep their World Cup appearance streak alive. The Eagles certainly have an ‘experience’ advantage over Chile coming into this tie. Their squad is littered with Premiership and Top 14 players including the likes of AJ MacGinty, Greg Peterson, Ruben De Haas, Kapeli Pifeleti, Joe Taufete’e and David Ainu’u, not to mention the benefits of Major League Rugby (MLR) raising the bar of their locally contracted players. With those players in the squad plus the experience of playing England, Ireland and New Zealand in 2021, USA are favourites for the two-legged affair, but they certainly won’t be taking Chile lightly given what Los Condores have done across the last 18 months.
The loser of this highly anticipated Americas Play-off will have a second chance to qualify through the Final Qualifier Tournament, in which they would qualify into Pool C should they win the tournament.
The Rugby World Cup is just 18 months away, and we at the Tight Five are already buzzing uncontrollably. There are four places still up for grabs which will finalise the World Cup Pools. All of the teams explored in this article have a chance of making it to France, and at least one of them will be capable of surprising the masses, but not the few who have done their research and know what is coming. This is shaping up to be one of the most competitive World Cups of all time both at the top end as well as at the bottom end. World Rugby it is time to expand the RWC to a 24 side tournament!