World Rugby’s latest video on YouTube is named The Greatest Drop Goals of All Time and as is no surprise it’s dominated by Tier 1 highlights, Dan Carter 2015, Zinzan Brooke 1995, Stephen Larkham 1999, Joel Stransky 1995, and at #1 Jonny Wilkinson 2003. NZ, Australia, South Africa and England, not surprising from a panel made up of 3 Aussies.
The sternum level tackle height trial will be extended to the U20 Championship in 2026. The dates haven’t been announced but the 2025 tournament started June 29th and wrapped up July 19th. In 2026 the tournament takes place in Georgia and will be expanded from 12 teams to 16 teams with USA, Fiji, Japan and Uruguay being added.
The pools for the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia have been announced and Canada are in Pool C with Argentina, Fiji and Spain. The format is the top 2 teams from each of the 6 pools move to the next round, along with the 4 best 3rd place finishers, for a round of 16. Canada’s chances of making the round of 16 likely come down to winning the match versus Spain and keeping the scoreline reasonable against Argentina and Fiji.
Canada will be part of the 2026 Nations Cup starting in July 2026. The Nations Cup is the Tier 2 equivalent of the Tier 1 Nations Championship. This new structure sets the test matches for the July and November windows except in World Cup or Lions Tour years. In those years there will be some crossover between the Tier 1 and Tier 2 brackets. The Tier 1 Nations Championship will include the Six Nations countries, England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Wales; plus SANZAAR countries Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa; plus Japan and Fiji. The Tier 2 Nations Cup will include Canada, Chile, Georgia, Hong Kong China, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Tonga, Uruguay, USA, Zimbabwe, Samoa.
It’s a relief from a Canadian perspective to announce the repechage tournament knowing Canada has already qualified for the 2027 World Cup. Canada didn’t even make the repechage tournament for the 2023 World Cup, and they had to win the repechage to make the 2019 World Cup. In that 2019 repechage tournament Canada defeated Germany, Hong Kong and Kenya to advance to the World Cup. This year Canada defeated USA to claim direct entry to the World Cup.
Now that Canada are back in the men’s World Cup there’s more interest in the details. This will be the first World Cup to have 24 teams, 6 pools of 4 teams and a knockout round of 16. The top 2 teams from each pool will advance to the round of 16 plus the 4 best 3rd place finishers. That means that some teams with only 1 win in the pool round may advance to the round of 16. The countries are placed in 4 bands depending on their ranking at draw time, Band 1 will be rankings 1 to 6, Band 2 are ranked 7 to 12, Band 3 are ranked 13 to 18 and Band 4 are ranked 19 to 24. Canada are ranked 24th and will be in Band 4.
World Rugby confirmed what they had hinted at in an earlier media release in April, that the Tier 1 JWC U20 tournament will be expanded from 12 to 16 teams. Today they released more details, the tournament will be hosted by Georgia and that the four extra teams will be Fiji, USA, Japan and Uruguay. Fiji because they were the last team relegated in 2024, and the other three as they finished 2nd to 4th at the 2024 JWRT.
You would think being #2 in the World that there would be some Canadian officiating representation at the Women’s Rugby World Cup to be held in England later this year. All the top 10 ranked countries have representation among the 22 officials selected… except Canada. England, Australia, Italy all have 3 selections, South Africa, NZ, Scotland, USA have 2. There are singles from France, Portugal, Wales, Ireland and Zimbabwe.
A couple of announcements out of World Rugby this week. The men’s RWC 2027 Final Qualifier tournament will be held in Dubai from November 8-18. This is one of those news items that you hope won’t apply to Canada but it may. The Canada men’s XVs team will have 4 opportunities to qualify for the World Cup before that tournament with a win against one of the following countries this summer/fall USA, Japan, Tonga (likely), Chile (likely). Belgium, who Canada will host this summer, have already qualified for the 4 team RWC Qualifier in Dubai in November.
Rugby Canada have completed the announcement of their summer/fall schedule for the men’s XVs team with the Canada v USA fixture in Calgary on August 22nd. That will give them 5 games between July and September, possibly 6 if they finish in the top 4 at the Pacific Nations. World Rugby have also announced the full schedule for the Pacific Nations. Both reports are listed below.