Rugby World Cup 2023 guide

The Rugby World Cup 2023 is here! This time, the quadrennial event is happening in France. The bad news for Wallabies supporters and rugby union lovers watching from Australia is the matches are on at some pretty rough times. Let’s dive into everything you need to know about the Rugby World Cup 2023.

If you want to watch every Rugby World Cup 2023 match, you’ll need a Stan Sport subscription. Alternatively, you can catch every Wallabies match via 9Now or live on Nine.

The initial Rugby World Cup 2023 matches are divided into four pools with five teams in each pool. Every team plays the other pool teams once, and the Wallabies are in Pool C. Below is every Wallabies match in the qualifying rounds:

• Australia vs Georgia: Sunday 10 September at 2:00am AEST
• Australia vs Fiji: Monday 18 September at 1:45am AEST
• Australia vs Wales: Monday 25 September at 5:00am AEST
• Australia vs Portugal: Monday 2 October at 2:45am

Get ready for some late nights and early mornings if you want to catch all of the Wallabies action live.

There are four pools—Pool A, Pool B, Pool C and Pool D—in the Rugby World Cup 2023, each with five teams apiece. Here’s how each Rugby World Cup 2023 pool looks, alongside their world rankings at the time of writing.

• New Zealand (2)
• France (4)
• Italy (13)
• Uruguay (17)
• Namibia (21)

I predict that New Zealand and France will be the top two teams in Pool A.

• South Africa (3)
• Ireland (1)
• Scotland (5)
• Tonga (15)
• Romania (19)

As the numbers suggest, it’s likely that Ireland and South Africa will go through to the quarterfinals.

• Wales (10)
• Australia (8)
• Fiji (9)
• Georgia (11)
• Portugal (16)

My money is on Australia and Wales making it through this particular pool.

• England (6)
• Japan (14)
• Argentina (7)
• Samoa (12)
• Chile (22)

The rankings suggest England and Argentina will top this pool but I’m backing Japan to get up against Argentina, so I’m expecting England and Japan to take out the top spots.

If you don’t mind dealing with incredibly irregular sleeping patterns for the length of the tournament, here’s every match time for the Rugby World Cup 2023 (bear in mind that Daylight Savings arrives on 1 October 2023).