RWC 2027's new format has a round of 16. Here's why it's either brilliant or a disaster for rugby.

World Rugby confirmed last year that Rugby World Cup 2027 will feature an expanded format: 24 teams, six pools of four, and a round of 16 before the quarter-finals. The announcement was met with the usual mixture of enthusiasm from tier-two nations and barely-disguised horror from the established powers.

Here's the case for it.

More teams, more stories, more genuine upsets. Uruguay beating Fiji. Georgia beating Scotland. Samoa beating Wales. These moments exist in the current format but they're rare and high-stakes in ways that sometimes produce boring, attritional rugby. A round of 16 gives more teams a genuine pathway, creates more meaningful matches, and — crucially — means that a team like Japan or Fiji can lose a pool match and still have a route to the quarter-finals.

Here's the case against it.

The world's best rugby is played between eight teams. The quarter-finals of a World Cup are where the tournament really starts. Adding a round of 16 means those matches are pushed back, the schedule becomes more congested, and the physical toll on the elite teams increases at exactly the wrong moment. The team that wins RWC 2027 will play eight Test matches in six weeks. That's not a rugby tournament. That's a hostage situation.

Both arguments are valid. Rugby World Cup 2027 will decide which one is right.