By Julian Linden
Sydney - The draw for the 2003 Rugby World Cup will be released on Monday after the long-running saga over hosting rights was finally resolved last month.
The tournament launch was originally scheduled to take place in March but had to be postponed after the International Rugby Board (IRB) dropped New Zealand as co-hosts and awarded the entire event to Australia.
The IRB's decision forced the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) to tear up the original playing schedule and come up with a new programme, which will be unveiled at the Sydney Opera House on Monday.
Although the finer details of the draw have remained a closely guarded secret, the IRB's previous announcements on the new tournament structure mean there are unlikely to be any major surprises when the schedule is released.
The fifth edition of the World Cup will be held over six weeks in October and November 2003 and there will be a total of 20 countries, split into four pools of five.
The top two sides from each pool will advance to the quarter-finals after the IRB abandoned the complicated format used in 1999 when the teams were split into five pools of four and playoffs were needed to narrow the field down to the last eight.
The eight quarter-finalists from 1999 - Australia, France, South Africa, New Zealand, Wales, England, Scotland and Argentina - are all guaranteed places as seeds in the 2003 finals but none of the other teams have been decided yet.
The remaining 12 spots will be determined by a series of regional qualifying tournaments, most of which have already commenced, before the end of the year.
The seeding will follow the order in which the teams finished in 1999 with Australia, as champions, seeded number one, ahead of runners-up France and semifinalists South Africa and New Zealand.
The four losing quarter-finalists, Wales, England, Scotland and Argentina, will be seeded fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth with Wales ranked highest because they won their pool while the others all finished runners-up.
With the four semifinalists from 1999 to be placed in different pools, much of the interest at Monday's launch will revolve around where 1991 finalists England is placed.
If, as expected, the IRB follows the format of pairing the highest seed with the lowest and the second highest and with the second lowest, two-time champions Australia and Argentina will be in the same pool, France and Scotland will be together, England will be grouped with 1995 champions South Africa and New Zealand, winners of the inaugural tournament in 1987, paired with Wales.
The ARU has also revealed matches will be played in state and territory capital cities Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra and Perth as well as a number of regional cities with the opening match and the final likely to be played at Sydney's Olympic stadium.
The majority of matches will also be played at night to fit in with European television programming and games would be spread throughout the week to avoid the cluttered Friday-Sunday schedule used at the 1999 World Cup.