RUGBY WORLD CUP 2011 DRAW

England have avoided a potentially tricky situation by being drawn into Pool B with top seeds Argentina, and Scotland from band 3. Having missed out on a fourth place IRB world ranking that would have guaranteed avoiding the three Southern Hemisphere teams, it can be argued that England got the luck of the draw.

But the England manager denied that the 2003 World Cup winners had been handed a relatively kind draw in New Zealand.

"There are a lot of tough groups," said Johnson, whose team will also face the top European qualifier and the winner of a play-off.

"Argentina have been successful and could have got to the final in 2007. If you want to get to the last week of the World Cup you need to be good enough to beat the best in the world," said Johnson, who played in England's only World Cup meeting with Argentina when Rob Andrew's boot secured a battling 24-18 win in 1995.

"There are some pretty tough groups there. Scotland and Fiji were in the third band and they both reached the quarter-finals at the last World Cup."

Considering the tournament is still three years away, predicting results from this early stage wouldn't do much good. A team's form can go up or down in the intervening years, but it's sure to make the next three Six Nations encounters between England and Scotland interesting. Not to mention the three games against Argentina England have coming up in 2009.

In Pool A, hosts New Zealand will be given ample early opportunity to avenge their 2007 Semi final defeat, as they've been grouped with France; as well as Tonga.

"I am happy. We didn't mind who we got today. you just have to win every game. They are pretty even pools and they will all be competitive." said New Zealand head coach Graham Henry. "It will be a marvellous tournament but there is a long way to go and we have a long way to wait. There is a lot of foundations to put in place and the hierarchy in world rugby will change in that time."

Pool C pits Australia, Ireland and Italy against each other.

"It is a fantastic way to kick off the competition but it's so far out it is impossible to say who will be around and what players will showing form." said Ireland coach Declan Kidney. "Ireland and Australia have played in World Cups before and it will add spice to the Ireland and Italy games over the next three years. When you are ranked liked we were, second in the pool, you are the target team for a lot of the others and everyone will be looking to have a go at us."

Year in year out, the pools get more competitive, with 2011 surely to be no exception, however perhaps the toughest looking pool at this early stage on paper is Pool D. Wales face World Champions South Africa and the team that dumped them out of the 2007 tournament, Fiji. With Samoa the probably candidate for 'Oceania 1'.

"It is a great draw and we are excited about it. Look at the World Cup last year - the winners of the competition came from the toughest pool. If we come out of it (the group), then we are in pretty good shape for the quarter-finals as we will have played some tough rugby, as long as we don't pick up too many injuries." said Warren Gatland, head coach of Wales.

"I think this is the toughest pool. Fiji and Samoa will have a huge amount of support (in New Zealand) and the crowd will be really behind them. Hopefully, we will get a bit of support for South Africa, but we need it for the other two as well. We have played the three toughest teams in the world this autumn, and there is a significant amount of improvement to come from our game."

Rugby World Cup 2011 Pool Draw:

Pool A - New Zealand, France, Tonga, Americas 1, Asia 1
Pool B - Argentina, England, Scotland, Europe 1, Play-off Winner
Pool C - Australia, Ireland, Italy, Europe 2, Americas 2
Pool D - South Africa, Wales, Fiji, Oceania 1, Africa 1

Knock-out stages:

Quarter-final 1: Winner Pool B v Runner-up Pool A
Quarter-final 2: Winner Pool C v Runner-up Pool D
Quarter-final 3: Winner Pool A v Runner-up Pool B
Quarter-final 4: Winner Pool D v Runner-up Pool C

Semi-final 1: Winner QF1 v Winner QF2
Semi-final 2: Winner QF3 v Winner QF4

Bronze Final: Loser SF1 v Loser SF2

Final: Winner SF1 v Winner SF2