Springboks brace for 2027 World Cup pool draw in Sydney

Two years out from the next World Cup, the bookies have the Springboks as hot favourites to defend their title once more, but that will not mean coach Rassie Erasmus will be holding thumbs when the pool draw is made in Sydney on Wednesday (start 11am).

The Springboks have shown the rugby world this year that they fear nobody, while in 2019 and 2023 they equally showed that, however tough their pool might be, they have the courage and gameplan to overcome in the end.

In 2019, they lost to New Zealand in a pool game and defied the odds to become the first country to lose a pool game and go on to win the Webb Ellis Cup. They did the same in 2023 when Ireland beat them in a pool game. The Boks shrugged off that potentially morale-breaking loss to defend their title.

Speaking of World Cup losses to New Zealand and Ireland, those countries are among a total of five teams to have beaten the Boks in a World Cup match since they first took part in 1995. In the 2003 World Cup in Australia, a weak Springbok team were beaten in a pool game by eventual champions England.

Who else have the Boks lost to in a World Cup campaign?

Japan’s Miracle of Brighton will not be far from Bok supporters’ minds. And the fifth team is the Boks’ nemesis World Cup team, Australia, and, ironically, the one danger the team could draw in Wednesday’s pool draw. That is because the host country finished outside the top band of countries that will fill the top spot in the various pools.

The six teams we know cannot be drawn against each other are fellow Bok Band 1 members, thanks to their finish on the 2025 World Rugby Rankings: South Africa, New Zealand, England, Ireland, France and Argentina. Teams fill into the six pools as each round of draws is made under each pool leader, as listed above.

That means one of the six pool leaders will draw Australia, which finished 2025 in seventh place on the world rankings. The Boks could well draw the Wallabies, and it should not worry this team that, in 1999, the Australians secured a semi-final victory over the Boks thanks to a freakish drop goal by Steven Larkham; and it will not trouble the Boks that the ageing Bok team of 2011 lost a quarter-final to the Australians in the New Zealand-hosted World Cup.

It will be in the back of their minds that they lost heavily to the Wallabies earlier this year in a Rugby Championship match in Johannesburg.

With all that said, looking at the best and worst scenarios for the Springboks, we arrive at the following after a forensic analysis of pool possibilities.

South Africa’s worst-case scenario for the Rugby World Cup 2027 pool draw: South Africa, Australia, Georgia, Samoa.

South Africa’s best-case scenario for the Rugby World Cup 2027 pool draw: South Africa, Japan, Tonga, Canada.