{"id":12740,"date":"2015-07-16T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T08:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/?p=12740"},"modified":"2015-07-16T21:30:53","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T20:30:53","slug":"teams-eye-rwc-2015-as-pacific-nations-cup-kicks-off-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/teams-eye-rwc-2015-as-pacific-nations-cup-kicks-off-this-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Teams eye RWC 2015 as Pacific Nations Cup kicks off this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- STICK HEADLINE HERE --><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<table id=\"backgroundTable\" style=\"width: 100%; margin: 0px auto; border: #2a3d83 10px solid;\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<table border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td colspan=\"2\">\n<h1 style=\"margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 28px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; color: #000; margin-top: 0px; line-height: 32px;\">Teams eye RWC 2015 as Pacific Nations Cup kicks off this weekend <!-- HEADLINE ENDS HERE --><\/h1>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td colspan=\"2\"><!-- MAIN TEXT MEDIA RELEASE STARTS HERE, DON'T FORGET TO KEEP THE STYLE BITS IN THE TAGS -->With excitement building ahead of Rugby World Cup 2015, six of the teams who will be competing on rugby\u2019s greatest stage have their eyes set on winning the World Rugby Pacific Nations Cup, which kicks off on 18 July, exactly two months before the showcase event.Canada, Fiji, Japan, Samoa, Tonga and USA have been busy preparing for England 2015 and winning the World Rugby Pacific Nations Cup would be a huge boost ahead of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>The teams have been drawn in two pools of three with teams playing across the two pools in a round-robin competition, played in venues in Fiji, USA and Canada between 18 July and 3 August.<\/p>\n<p>Adding extra excitement to the competition schedule, for the positional play-offs the teams will be ranked according to the number of competition points achieved across pool play. The finals will be held in Burnaby, Canada on 3 August.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newsletter.worldrugby.org:81\/CT00316301MTI4Nzg=.HTML?D=2015-07-15\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE FOR PNC NEWS AND FIXTURES &gt;&gt; <\/a><\/p>\n<p>With all the focus on team performance ahead of England 2015, there are some mouth-watering encounters that will provide a preview of what to expect in September and October as Rugby World Cup Pool B opponents USA and Samoa play on 18 July, while Japan, also in Pool B, tackle USA on 24 July.<\/p>\n<p>World Rugby Chairman Bernard Lapasset said: \u201cThe World Rugby funded Pacific Nations Cup always delivers excitement and highly-competitive action, but this year\u2019s edition takes on extra significance with Rugby World Cup 2015 just two months away.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWorld Rugby is committed to supporting these teams on the road to England 2015 and it will be exciting to see where they are in their preparation as we look forward to what promises to be an exceptionally competitive Rugby World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>World Rugby will be providing a live stream of all Pacific Nations Cup matches (subject to territory-specific geo-blocking) so every try, pass, tackle and kick will be broadcast live with round-by-round highlights also available online and on the World Rugby TV programme.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newsletter.worldrugby.org:81\/CT00316302MTI4Nzg=.HTML?D=2015-07-15\" target=\"_blank\">FIND OUT WHERE YOU CAN WATCH THE PNC ACTION &gt;&gt; <\/a><\/p>\n<p>World Rugby is committed to ensuring the best-possible level of support and preparation for all Tier 2 unions and is investing more than \u00a353 million in the development of the unions since the last Rugby World Cup with the objective of closing the competition gap.<\/p>\n<p>Tickets are still available for England 2015 by visiting <a href=\"http:\/\/newsletter.worldrugby.org:81\/CT00316303MTI4Nzg=.HTML?D=2015-07-15\" target=\"_blank\">www.rugbyworldcup.com\/ticketing <\/a>. You can also download the official Rugby World Cup 2015 App to keep up to date with all the latest news and plan your Rugby World Cup 2015 experience.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Teams eye RWC 2015 as Pacific Nations Cup kicks off this weekend With excitement building ahead of Rugby World Cup 2015, six of the teams who will be competing on rugby\u2019s greatest stage have their eyes set on winning the World Rugby Pacific Nations Cup, which kicks off on 18 July, exactly two months before [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1836],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12742,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12740\/revisions\/12742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}