Luck of Irish not with Scots in draw for 2027’s Rugby World Cup

The Borderer is challenging his team to defy their second-seeded status and finish ahead of opposite number Andy Farrell’s top-seeded Irish – ranked fourth in the world, five places higher than the Scots – in their group at the year after next’s cup in Australia.

Wednesday’s draw sees Uruguay and Portugal make up the rest of their four-team pool, one of six, and they’re ranked 14th and 20th in the world respectively.

The coming cup will be the third on the bounce to pair Scotland with Ireland and that’s not worked out well for Townsend’s team on those two prior occasions, having lost 36-14 in France in 2023 and 27-3 in Japan in 2019.

Those two defeats are part of an 11-match losing streak against Ireland stretching back seven years, their last win against them having been at 2017’s Six Nations with Vern Cotter in charge, by 27-22 at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium, thanks to two tries from Hawick’s Stuart Hogg, another from former Greens and Selkirk centre Alex Dunbar and three conversions and two penalties kicked by Jedburgh’s Greig Laidlaw, captain that day.

Scotland finished third in a pool of five both two years ago and four years prior and former Gala and Border Reivers back Townsend, head coach since 2017, is expecting to improve on that next time round, though a change of format, with 24 teams taking part rather than 20 and pools feeding into a round of 16 rather than eight, will make progress easier than previously.

The top two teams in each pool and four third-placed finishers will go into that extra knockout round ahead of quarter-finals.

If Townsend’s team top their pool, they’ll go on to face one of the third-placed finishers, but if they end up as runners-up, they’ll be likely to play France next.

Contemplating that prospect, having lost their last three games against the French, Townsend, 52, said: “We obviously want to make sure that we don’t go as the seedings go and we get out first, but if that were the way it was to work out, then we know France.

“France are a team we play regularly and we’ll have played them twice before then, just like Ireland.

“There are a lot of teams capable of beating each other in world rugby right now – we’ve seen that over the last six to 12 months.

“A lot of people are saying it’s the best ever Springbok team, or they’re the best-ever team in the world, but the Springboks lost two games this year as well, to New Zealand and Australia, so teams have been able to beat each other, and we saw that in November too.”

Townsend is hoping for one form-book upset especially and that would be a seventh win against Ireland this century, offset by 27 defeats, saying: “We know we have to be better than we were in the last two world cups against Ireland in particular, and really, apart from maybe two games in the last four or five we’ve played against Ireland, the last game in Dublin was very good and the year before at Murrayfield was good.

“On other occasions, it’s not been good enough, so we know we’d have to play a lot better against them, and we have two opportunities prior to the world cup as well to go up against them.

“We have two occasions – one in Dublin, one at Murrayfield – before the world cup.

“The goal every year is to try and beat Ireland, and the other teams in the Six Nations, but it’s even more important now.

“It would help massively if we got on the right side of the results for a change. We know how tough it’ll be.

“Dublin in the last game of the next championship will be a very difficult game, but we played really well last time we were out there and we’ll be doing all we can to win that game.

“It’ll be more difficult in the world cup if we haven’t managed to beat Ireland in the next two seasons.”

Prior to their two latest knockouts, Scotland last shared a world cup pool with Ireland in the UK in 1991, beating them 24-15 at Murrayfield, their only win ever against them in that competition – thanks to tries from Jedburgh’s Gary Armstrong and Melrose’s Graham Shiel and a drop-goal from the latter’s fellow Greenyards player Craig Chalmers, plus two conversions and three penalties from Gavin Hastings – and ending up on top of their group, with the Irish as runners-up, going on to finish fourth, their highest placing to date in the cup.

They were in the same pool as Portugal in 2007 in France, beating them 56-10, with Kelso’s Ross Ford and Melrose’s Kelly Brown among seven try-scorers.

Uruguay shared a group with them in 1999, losing out to their hosts at Murrayfield by 43-12, with Townsend and Armstrong scoring two of the Scots’ six tries.

Scotland are unbeaten against both Uruguay and Portugal, having played a handful of games against them combined.

Their last game against the Portuguese was a 59-21 home win in November 2024, with Hawick’s Darcy Graham among seven players to touch down for the hosts and a penalty try also being awarded.

Their most recent meeting with the Uruguayans was in Montevideo four months prior, yielding a victory by 31-19, with West Linton’s Patrick Harrison among the tourists’ five try-scorers.

The next world cup starts at the beginning of October 2027 and concludes in mid-November.