The Rugby World Cup has seen thrilling matches and heartbreaking injuries so far and the tournament continues this weekend with the final pool round.
The latest injury hit for the tournament has been France’s scrum half Laure Sansus who ruptured her ACL against England. The number nine was planning to retire after the World Cup and so it is a gutting end to a glittering career.
France will have to face Fiji without her with Pauline Bourdon in line to start. The other match in their pool, Pool C, will see England take on South Africa where the Red Roses will be bidding to continue their unbeaten streak in the tournament.
The quarter-final fixtures will be hammered out with the last results of the pool coming on Sunday. But how will they be worked out? And how do the semi-finals work?
Here’s all you need to know.
How are quarter-final and semi-final fixtures decided?
The top eight seeded teams from across all three pools will qualify for the quarter-finals. They include the pool winners, the runners-up and two third placed teams.
The two third placed teams will be decided on the amount of competition points they have.
Seeding for all the teams for the quarter-finals will be decided on the place they finished in their pool and their competition points. So the top three seeds will be pool winners ordered by their competition points, the next three will be the runners-up in the pools ordered by competition points and the next two will be the third placed teams ordered by competition points.
The quarter-final fixtures will see the top seed play the eighth seed, the second seed play the seventh seed and so on. The semi-finals will see the winner from the first quarter-final play the fourth quarter and the second and third quarter-final winners compete against one another.
How things stand
There is still one round of the pool stage to go so the seeding has not yet been finalised. However, here are how things stand at the moment:
New Zealand
Canada
England
France
Italy
Australia
USA
Wales
If they remain the same after the final round of pool matches the quarter-finals would be:
New Zealand vs Wales
Canada vs USA
England vs Australia
France vs Italy
And if England defeated Australia, they would play either Canada or the USA in the semi-final. If the tournament pans out this way it tees up a rematch of the 2017 final between England and New Zealand as they would be on opposite sides of the draw.
England’s potential opponents
If things remain as they are the Red Roses will play Australia in the quarters but with so many moving parts determining the seeding they could face other opponents.
As there are so many different possibilities of how things could turn out after this weekend, here is just one scenario in which England would face arch rivals Wales.
If England bag a bonus point win over South Africa, New Zealand beat Scotland with a bonus point and Canada beat the USA without a bonus point, the Red Roses would move into second in the seedings. Then if Wales defeat Australia they would move into seventh and they would face neighbours England in the quarter-final.
The liklihood is England will face either Australia, Wales, USA or Italy in the quarter-finals but all will be determined in the final pool round.
Final pool round fixtures
Saturday, 22 October
Australia vs Wales, 2.15am BST
New Zealand vs Scotland, 4.45am BST
France vs Fiji, 7.15am BST
Sunday, 23 October
Japan vs Italy, 12.45am BST
Canada vs USA, 3.15am BST
England vs South Africa, 5.45am BST
