Fiji relish rare Argentina clash as long RWC streak with Wales ends

Fiji’s pool-stage opponents at Men’s Rugby World Cup 2027 have been revealed, with a rare clash with Argentina shaping up as “one of the highlights” of the tournament. With Spain and Canada rounding out Pool C, a long-lasting World Cup streak has also come to an end.

This will be the first time since the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia that the Flying Fijians and Wales have not been drawn in the same group. They have met at the showpiece event in men’s rugby every four years since, almost always against the Wallabies.

Fiji will instead look ahead to renewing a rivalry with Argentina, who they haven’t played since August 18, 2003. Los Pumas joined The Rugby Championship nine years later, and have since emerged as the giant-slayers of men’s international rugby.

Argentina have defeated the Springboks during the 2024 TRC, before turning heads again with a win against the British & Irish Lions in Dublin earlier this year. They have since emerged victorious against the All Blacks and Wallabies.

“Spain and Argentina play a similar style of footy, they like to run, they like to throw the ball around, they like to keep the ball alive. Defensively, we need to be on our game when we play those teams,” coach Mick Byrne told reporters on Thursday.

“Canada, we’ve played a lot recently and they’re getting a really good structure around the way they’re playing. They’ve become very aggressive in their ball carries and their line speed’s improved a lot in defence.

“Having played Spain and Canada a bit in the last couple of years, we’ll keep an eye on them and we’ve got a good benchmark to see where they’re at and what improvements they’ve made.

“Argentina play a great brand of rugby and the Fiji-Argentina game will be one of the highlights of the World Cup.

“Fiji have played Australia and Wales over the last couple of World Cups so it’s good to have a mix of other teams, I think that makes it exciting for us,” he added later.

“The beauty is we’re playing Argentina. Of all the teams there in the top six, there’s Ireland, France and England, we played Ireland last year, and France and England this year, and we’ll play the three of those teams next year.

“Then there’s the All Blacks, South Africa and Argentina and we’ve got one of those teams in our pool so that’s the exciting part, to be able to play another Southern Hemisphere team… we haven’t played [Argentina] since 2003 and it’s an exciting build-up for us.”

Fiji’s last match of the 2025 Quilter Nations Series was a hard-fought eight-point win over Spain in Malaga. The Flying Fijians boast an unbeaten record in their all-time head-to-head meetings with Spain, and will look to maintain that at the World Cup.

This will be Canada’s 10^th World Cup appearance, having missed out on the last tournament in France. Canada’s best record was a quarter-final finish at the 1991 World Cup, but they’ve won at last one match in six of their 10 tournament appearances.

“If you get to the World Cup Final it’s seven games so it’s a long tournament. You get to play teams that you may not get a chance to play very much so that’s exciting,” Byrne said.

“We’re going to get to play Argentina, I think the last time we played them was 2003 so they’re the exciting things.

“Being in our backyard, there’ll be a good following, we’ll have a lot of fans. We’re really looking forward to that, that’s an exciting part of having a World Cup in Australia is we know our Fijian families and communities in Australia are very strong.

“We wait now to see where our games are and where that’s going to happen, I think that’s going to be early in the New Year when we find that out. Then we can work on where we’re going to be based, and then we can connect with our communities when we get over there.”