KEY POINTS:
World rankings will be used to seed teams for the 2011 Rugby World Cup it was announced today.
The International Rugby Board said the pool allocation draw will take place in December and that rankings will dictate the tournament seeds for the first time. The cut-off date for the rankings will be December 1.
World Cup seedings have previously been determined by the results of the preceding tournament.
The 12 automatic qualifiers from last year's World Cup in France will be spread through the four 2011 pools based on their rankings. Twenty teams will contest the tournament, with the other eight determined by a series of worldwide qualifying matches.
Rugby World Cup Limited (RWCL) chairman Syd Millar described the change as "innovative".
"The Rankings are now very well established and provide us with a credible and succinct way of seeding teams for the Rugby World Cup pool draw," Millar said in a statement.
" The RWCL Board felt that the rankings are a more accurate record of a team's position at any given time and will provide the best possible chance of evenly matched pools emerging from the draw."
The 12 automatic qualifiers are champions South Africa, runners-up England, losing semifinalists France and Argentina, losing quarterfinalists Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Scotland, and Italy, Tonga, Wales and Ireland who finished in third place in their respective pools.
The top-four ranked qualified teams will go into the first band of the draw, followed by the next four in the second band and next four in the third band. The draw will be random.
The fourth band will comprise the top qualifiers from Oceania, the Americas and Europe, along with the second qualifiers from Europe.
The fifth band will comprise the top qualifiers from Africa and Asia, the second Americas qualifier and the winner of a playoff between the third qualifiers from Europe and the Americas.
Miller said ideally the draw would have taken place next year but that wouldn't have allowed enough time to negotiate and confirm venues for the 48 matches and the associated team base camps.
Rugby New Zealand 2011 Ltd chief executive Martin Snedden said his tournament organising body would have ample time to move ahead with its match and team allocation planning.
"There is strong interest from regions across New Zealand in hosting matches or teams during Rugby World Cup 2011," Snedden said.
"The confirmation of the seeding process for the 12 teams which have already qualified allows us to move ahead with the allocation process."
Snedden said the allocation of the venues for the four quarterfinal matches and the third-fourth playoff was on track to be confirmed later this year.
The allocation of the 40 pool-phase matches and team bases will be finalised in the first quarter of 2009.
"A key learning from RWC 2007 is that great care must be taken to ensure that potential host regions and venues are informed about and fully understand all of the hosting obligations and likely benefits before these match and team allocation decisions are made," Snedden said.
- NZPA
