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For the first time the IRB World Rankings will be used to seed the 12 pre-qualified teams from RWC 2007 into bands for the draw, which takes place in London on Monday, December 1, 2009.
As in RWC 2007, there will be four pools of five teams in RWC 2011.
The teams in the top three bands are as follows:
Band 1: New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Argentina
Band 2: Wales, England, France, Ireland
Band 3: Scotland, Fiji, Italy, Tonga
The final two positions in each pool will be allocated to the eight qualifying places still available for RWC 2011.
The banding of these eight teams is as follows:
Band 4: Americas 1, Europe 1, Europe 2, Oceania 1
Band 5: Africa 1, Americas 2, Asia 1, Playoff place
The teams in each band will be drawn randomly into one of the four pools.
