“It’s robbing the fans, robbing, I think, the game.” Steve Hansen, on For The Love Of Rugby: South Africa.
Steve Hansen cannot understand how the world’s two best teams have been drawn to meet in a World Cup quarter-final.
“There’s a hell of a quarterfinal going to happen. Like the two best teams in the world, how the hell it can be. So yeah, I don’t understand that, how you can have the two team, one, two team drawn to play in a quarterfinal…”
The Rugby World Cup 2027 draw put New Zealand in Pool A and South Africa in Pool B. If both win their pool and their round-of-16 match, they meet in a quarter-final in Australia next October.
They are first and second in the world, and they have just played a four-Test series South Africa won 3-1.
Is an All Blacks v Springboks quarter-final robbing the fans, or is it the best game of the tournament?
How the Rugby World Cup 2027 draw set it up
On Tuesday’s episode of For The Love Of Rugby: South Africa, Hansen told Steven Kitshoff the draw is robbing the fans. He coached the All Blacks from 2012 to 2019. His complaint is about a bracket that was fixed before a single ball was drawn.
World Rugby split the 24 qualified teams into four bands, using the rankings of 1 December last year. Band 1 held the top six sides.
Each went into a different pool at random in the pools drawn in Sydney last December. The knockout route for each pool had been set in advance, so where New Zealand and South Africa landed decided the rest.
| Stage | New Zealand, as Pool A winners | South Africa, as Pool B winners |
|---|---|---|
| Pool | Australia, Chile, Hong Kong China | Italy, Georgia, Romania |
| Round of 16 | A third-placed side from Pool C, E or F | A third-placed side from Pool D, E or F |
| Quarter-final | The Pool B winners’ side of the bracket | The Pool A winners’ side of the bracket |
Source: the World Rugby draw of 3 December 2025 and the tournament’s published knockout schedule.
The two sides have met in two World Cup finals. South Africa won them by three points in 1995 and by one in 2023. Next year the earliest they can meet is a quarter-final.
Ewen McKenzie had the way round it
Ewen McKenzie, 51 Tests at tighthead for the Wallabies and later their head coach, was on the same call. His answer was the bracket, read backwards.
“Well, someone might have to lose a game in the pool. So you end up on the other side of the draw.”
He is right about the mechanics. A New Zealand side that finished second in Pool A would play the Pool E runner-up in the round of 16. If South Africa won Pool B, the two could then meet only in the final.
McKenzie named nobody, and no coach walks into a World Cup planning to lose a pool match.
But Pool A has a fixture that could do it for them. New Zealand play Australia at Stadium Australia in Sydney on Saturday 9 October 2027. If the hosts win it and top the pool, the quarter-final route towards South Africa is theirs.
The biggest enemy might be the draw
McKenzie kept going, and the line that landed was his.
“…it’s silly that… that happened. The draw might be the biggest problem. The biggest enemy in the thing might be the draw.”
Hansen came back in behind him.
“Well, it’s robbing the fans, robbing, I think, the game, the opportunity of seeing, you know, I think, not saying that both those two teams will be the two best teams in the World Cup, but right now you’d say they’re the two of the best teams in the world and have them playing at a quarterfinal.”
Note the hedge in the middle. He is talking about now, and the rankings agree: South Africa on 95.09, New Zealand on 91.15, as of Monday 14 September.
Read also: Eddie Jones called the seeding system unworkable when the pools came out, long before anyone knew how this series would go.
The coaches had to accept it. Hansen does not
When the pools were drawn, the All Blacks’ coach at the time, Scott Robertson, said to embrace it. Rassie Erasmus issued a measured warning. Neither coach could do anything else, and neither can now.
Hansen and McKenzie can. Neither coaches a Test side now, and both said it out loud.
The case against them is simple. A quarter-final between these two will very likely be the match of the tournament, whatever round it is played in. Knockout rugby is meant to be hard.
The case for them is better. A random allocation into a bracket fixed almost two years out has put the sport’s two best sides on the same half of the draw.
Hansen’s sentence trailed off before he said exactly what the fans lose. The likeliest reading is the final. The quarter-final itself will be a hell of a game. The loss is the final it replaces.
Read next: Hansen’s other fight with the people who run the game: he wants the TMO scrapped.
Your turn: robbing the fans, or the game of the tournament?
Two ways to see it. Either Hansen is right, and a draw made almost two years out has taken away the final most neutrals wanted. Or the bracket is simply the price of a World Cup, and a quarter-final between the two best sides is a gift. Which is it? Settle it below.
Frequently asked
Will the All Blacks and Springboks meet in the 2027 World Cup quarter-finals?
Only if both win their pools and their round-of-16 matches. The Pool A winners’ path, New Zealand’s on seeding, meets the Pool B winners’ path, South Africa’s, in a quarter-final.
Who is in Pool A at Rugby World Cup 2027?
New Zealand, Australia, Chile and Hong Kong China. New Zealand play Australia at Stadium Australia in Sydney on Saturday 9 October 2027.
What did Steve Hansen say about the Rugby World Cup 2027 draw?
On For The Love Of Rugby: South Africa, released on Tuesday 22 September, Hansen said a New Zealand v South Africa quarter-final is “robbing the fans” and asked “how the hell it can be”. Ewen McKenzie said “the biggest enemy in the thing might be the draw”.
