Scotland's fate unfolds at World Cup draw

SCOTLAND will today learn their 2011 World Cup fate when the draw for the tournament is made in London, after being left on a collision course with a southern hemisphere heavyweight and one from Wales, England, France, and Ireland.

The autumn internationals saw Scotland slip from the second tier of seeds to the third tier for the first time, meaning that Scotland's qualifying group in New Zealand will include two other major nations – with only two teams from each group qualifying for the next stage of the competition.

New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, and Argentina are in the top pot of seeds. Wales, England, France and Ireland are in the second pot, and Scotland, Fiji, Italy, and Tonga are in the third pot, completing the list of 12 pre-qualified teams.

The remaining two bands will comprise eight countries yet to qualify, but should eventually include sides like Samoa, Canada, Georgia and Japan.

One country from each band will form four groups of five for the 20-team tournament.

There has been some criticism of the decision to formulate the New Zealand 2011 draw based on world rankings almost three years before the event.

But Kit McConnell, head of Rugby World Cup 2011, said: "The draw is very important for us because from there we can develop the match schedule, we can select team base camps and we can also develop the ticketing strategy for the tournament. Those three elements are really critical to putting the building blocks in place early enough to make 2011 the same success as we saw in France (2007].

"By having certainty about which teams are playing which other teams in each pool, we can develop the match schedule. That is obviously of critical importance to the teams and also the supporters to know who is playing which other teams when, and where, and we will be announcing that in March, so that is really the next key step in the tournament preparations."

The city of Dunedin is hoping that today's draw sends Scotland their way. Founded by the Free Church of Scotland in 1848, and known as the Edinburgh of the South – Dunedin is the gaelic name for Edinburgh – the city is part of the 'South of the South' bid which comprises Otago and Southland. Bid activists have indicated that Scotland are the team they are most keen to host during the tournament in three years' time.

Speaking in London ahead of today's pool draw, Martin Snedden, chief executive for the IRB Rugby World Cup 2011 New Zealand, says that until all the draws are complete it is difficult to know which teams will be allocated to which region.

"If things fall the right way then it would make sense to put Scotland in Dunedin but looking at it another way, the Scots know Dunedin well so they might be better based somewhere else.

"Wherever they are they will get an incredibly friendly welcome from whatever community they're based in, they need have no fears, all regions will have their time in the sun."

Each of the four pools drawn today will correspond to one of four areas of New Zealand: the top half of the north island, the bottom half of the north island, the south island and a national pool. A total of 16 venues throughout the country have been nominated from the 12 regions.

Auckland's Eden Park, currently being upgraded to a 60,000-seater stadium, will host the semi-finals and third-place play-off match, while Wellington and Christchurch will each host two quarter finals. Dunedin is also to shortly decide whether to go ahead with building a new 29,000-seat covered stadium to replace Carisbrook, which currently holds 30,000.

FACT BOX

BAND 1 New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Argentina.

BAND 2 Wales, England, France, Ireland.

BAND 3 Scotland, Fiji, Italy, Tonga.

BAND 4 Oceania 1, Europe 1, Europe 2, Americas 1.

BAND 5 Africa 1, Asia 1, Americas 2, Play-off winners.