The Wallabies are set for a historic pool at the 2027 World Cup, facing Hong Kong China and Chile for the first time ever, in addition to a maiden Bledisloe pool match against their rivals, the All Blacks.
Now the question is, which side will the Wallabies face first in the tournament opener?
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As part of the tradition of the Rugby World Cup, the host nation plays the first match of the tournament following the opening ceremony - and history shows the hosts have a strong record, with only England in 1991 and France in 2007 losing their tournament openers as hosts.
Now, as Australia begins to plot its path to World Cup glory, discussion has almost immediately turned to who they will meet when the side takes the field for the tournament opener in Perth - but captain Harry Wilson has made an early call as to who he would like to face.
“We're obviously stoked to get the All Blacks,” Wilson said following the draw on Wednesday night. “For a team we love playing to get them in the showpiece event, it's really exciting.
“In a World Cup, if you want to win it, you've got to beat the best teams, and they're obviously one of the best teams in the world.
“As a group, we know we can beat them. We've shown ourselves how capable we are, but we've still got to pull it together for 80 minutes.
“I'd like to get them straight away, to be honest.
“If it's the opening game of a World Cup, I reckon there wouldn’t be many better games to play than that one. So I know that's something everyone would be pretty excited for.”
The sentiments were echoed by All Black great Dan Carter, with the World Cup-winning flyhalf believing the All Blacks have the side to win the tournament.
“Who knows if it will be an opening match or not? I was joking that potentially we neighbours, Australia and New Zealand, could be in the same pool for the first time,” Carter joked with reporters.
“Sure enough, that's the way it went. So that would be a huge game in Pool A.
“They've [All Blacks] definitely got the players to win a World Cup, it's just a matter of working on building depth. Now we just need to start sort of working on combinations, consistency and monitoring sort of growth over the next two years.
“You don't win World Cups two years out from a World Cup, as long as the trajectory is forward over the next couple of years, they'll definitely put themselves in the best possible shape to do that.”
However, despite talk of a Bledisloe opener, Chris Stanley, Managing Director of the 2027 Rugby World Cup, pumped the brakes on talk that the All Blacks would automatically be selected as opening opponents.
With the match schedule to be worked out between now and February 2026, this opens the door for Hong Kong, China, or Chile to be considered for the opener, with the Wallabies potentially shifting to play the All Blacks at a venue like the MCG in Melbourne.
“I think it was a fantastic draw. Every World Cup has amazing match-ups,” Stanley added. “There's no such thing as a bad Rugby World Cup match.”
"What's important for us between now and 3rd February next year, when we announce the match schedule, is to work out which teams are playing in which cities.
“There are a number of factors. We look at crowd sizes, where the best place is to host each of our matches, not just the opening match, [but] all of them. We haven't made that decision.
“There are lots of factors that come into it, not just stadium size. We'll look at each of our matches, and where people are located around the country. So we look at the local diaspora, where they're living, so we can grow local fans.
“Big stadiums are important to us for our bigger matches, but that's not the only consideration. We have to look at match timings, at where we're broadcasting around the world for each of our matches. There's a lot of considerations that come into it.”
Should Chile or Hong Kong China be selected, Wilson conceded the Wallabies will have to do a deep dive, the men in gold having never played either side.
“I honestly don't know too much about them,” Wilson said of his other two pool opponents.
“No doubt over the next year and a half, they will be teams all Australians are keeping an eye on because when you've got them in the World Cup pool stage, you're going to have to know your team well.”
