Draw
Seeding of teams for the 2011 World Cup was based on their respective IRB World Rankings. The top four at the 2007 Rugby World Cup (South Africa, England, Argentina, and France) were not therefore allocated top pool spots, but "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", according to Rugby World Cup Ltd (RWCL) chairman Syd Millar.
The draw was conducted in December 2008 and used the World Rankings as of 1 December 2008, after the Northern Hemisphere Autumn internationals. The teams were placed into three bands depending on their seedings at the time, with one team from each band in each of the groups. The rankings and bands were therefore: New Zealand (1), South Africa (2), Australia (3) and Argentina (4); Wales (5), England (6), France (7) and Ireland (8); Scotland (9), Fiji (10), Italy (11) and Tonga (12).
The full draw and venues for the tournament were announced on 12 March 2009.
The opening match saw the hosts, New Zealand, take on Tonga.
By coincidence, the final match and third-place playoff match were between the countries which contested the same matches at the first Rugby World Cup, which were also held in New Zealand, in 1987.
Read more about this topic: 2011 Rugby World Cup
Famous quotes containing the word draw:
“People can be lovers and enemies at the same time, you know. We were.... A man and woman draw apart from that long embrace, and see what they have done to each other.... In age we lose everything; even the power to love.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its forms merely,—but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at will in every attitude.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“You have but little more to do than throw up your cap for entertainment these American days.... Farmers’ sons will stare by the hour to see a juggler draw ribbons from his throat, though he tells them it is all deception. Surely, men love darkness rather than light.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)