England and New Zealand will battle for pride in this weekend's Autumn Internationals but several other games have something more tangible on the line as countries seek world ranking points to earn a favourable seeding for the 2027 World Cup.
The draw for the tournament will be held on 3 December, with only the last few November internationals left for teams to secure ranking points.
With the tournament expanded to 24 teams there is a new format to the draw, which is being held a year later after the widespread criticism of the system for the 2023 event which was held three years out with, partly due to COVID, rankings taken at the end of the 2019 World Cup.
The situation changed so much that the tournament in France ended up with three of the world's top five - South Africa, Ireland and Scotland - in the same pool and the top five in the world on the same side of the draw.
That led to 'skewed' quarter-finals where the top four in the world faced off, with New Zealand beating Ireland and South Africa edging France on a memorable weekend.
FULL LIST OF AUTUMN INTERNATIONAL RESULTS AND FIXTURES
This time the six top-ranked teams at the end of November - two years out - will be top seeds for the six pools of four teams in Australia.
The current top five of South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland, England and France are secure and Argentina look likely to hold on to sixth place.
Struggling Australia in seventh will probably need at least one win against Ireland or France and need the Pumas to lose to Scotland and England to avoid being in the second tier for their own tournament.
Traditionally, finishing second in a pool meant a tougher quarter-final against a pool winner, but with 2027 introducing a Round of 16, the impact might not be felt until later along the line - though topping a group will still be hugely beneficial.
Being among the third seeds will present countries with a huge challenge to go deep into the tournament.
Australia look set to join Scotland, Fiji, Italy and Georgia as second seeds, with the sixth and final berth likely to be effectively decided in Cardiff on Saturday when Wales play Japan.
After losing 19 of their last 20 games Wales are clinging on to 12th, marginally ahead of 13th-placed Japan.
A Japanese victory or a draw would leapfrog them into 12th and leave Wales needing unlikely victories over New Zealand and South Africa - a game when they will be without many of their leading players as the match is outside the international window - to reclaim 12th spot.
If Wales beat Japan - the only team they have beaten in the last two years - it would not be the final word, as Japan could make up ground the following week by beating Georgia.
Fiji are also in with a very slim chance of sneaking into the top six, for the first time, but they would need to beat France by 15 points and need Australia and Argentina to both lose.
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