The Pool Draw for the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2017 will take place later this morning at Belfast City Hall.
Ireland are alongside New Zealand and the USA as second seeds and will face one of England, Canada or France in next Summers tournament to be played between Dublin and Belfast.
The draw will be streamed live via World Rugby – http://www.rwcwomens.com/.
The Women’s Rugby World Cup 2017 in Ireland will feature 12 teams, who will be drawn into three pools of four teams.
The top seven teams from Women’s Rugby World Cup 2014 in France qualified automatically for Ireland 2017. They are: England, Canada, France, Ireland, New Zealand, USA and Australia.
Those seven teams have since been joined by Italy and Wales, who were the top two ranked sides outside of England, France and Ireland across the 2015 and 2016 Women’s Six Nations.
The remaining three qualifiers will be determined by the end of 2016 and they are as follows: Fiji, Japan and Hong Kong will compete in a three match round-robin tournament to be played over December 9, 13 and 17 in Hong Kong. The top two teams will qualify for WRWC 2017.
The last-placed Six Nations team from the combined 2015 and 2016 rankings, Scotland, will play two matches, home and away, against the winners of the Rugby Europe competition (Spain) on Friday, November 18 in Scotstoun, Glasgow and Saturday, November 26 in Madrid, with the overall winners qualifying for WRWC 2017.
Ireland take on England at UCD in the first of the November Internationals at UCD on Sunday.
Join Minister of State Patrick O’Donovan, Sally Hancock, Lidl and Niamh Briggs and be one of 100 voices gathered to map a future for Women’s sport in Ireland on November 30th.
