How are pools decided?

Question

How are pools decided?

Answer 1

Top 12 teams are guaranteed next world cup, not the top 8. The pools consist of one semi finalist, one losing quarter finalist and one third placed side. Could theoretically get a pool of South Africa, NZ & Ireland

Answer 2

The IRB directors go to a bar, and after writing all the participating teams on the chalk board around the dart board. Then they see how much money has been placed in the envelopes and choose who will be in the final.

After that has been decided, they then work out who will make up the final eight. After a few more beers, a few more envelopes, a few more jokes, they then pick the four groups by placing the eight they want in the final (two in A, two in B. two in C and two in D. The remaining spots are filled by the teams most likely to cause the least resistance to their preferred outcome.

As a precautionary measure they then choose the referees for the games, and a few more drinks, a few more envelopes and occasionally they offer to play a game in another country, dependent on envelopes etc.

If all that fails, they then send off players, sin bin players and ignore the rules. And thats about it really.

Answer 3

answer ahead of me incorrect,

They are done like this (for 2011)

1st 2007 pool A

2nd 2007 pool B

3rd 2007 pool C

4th 2007 pool D

not semi finalists!!!!!!!!

Answer 4

The top 8 teams from the previous tournament in 2003 automatically qualified for this years Rugby World Cup.    

The Semi-finalist teams ranked 1-4 from the previous WC, are put into A-D pools respectively into the next WC.

So for 2011 RWC it could look like this, if South Africa and Argentina win their games this weekend:

1st Ranked RWC07: Pool A - South Africa

2nd Ranked RWC07: Pool B - England

3rd Ranked RWC07: Pool C - Argentina

4th Ranked RWC07: Pool D - France

The losing Quarter Finalists from the previous WC were drawn randomly into each pool for this years WC.  

And the rest of the pool positions were then filled up by the remaining Qualifiers through a random draw.

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As stated by Riddler, the number of automatic qualifiers have increased to 12 teams (top 3 of each pool) for the next RWC, instead of the usual 8.