Irish to be based in Bordeaux

World Cup: The International Rugby Board (IRB) has released the pool-stage "base camp" locations for the participating teams…

World Cup:The International Rugby Board (IRB) has released the pool-stage "base camp" locations for the participating teams in the World Cup in France. For the first time in the tournament's history each of the 20 teams will be located in a regional base camp, either a town or city.

The squads will stay and train in those locations and will play at least one match in their base-camp region.

Teams will travel to other match cities from the base, stay in the match city for some time then return to the base.

Ireland's base is Bordeaux, where they play their opening two matches before moving to Paris to face France and Argentina.

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There will be standardised training facilities for all teams comprising one full-size pitch and access to a reserve pitch, an indoor training area, a swimming pool and a gymnasium.

For the knockout stages (quarter-finals, semi-finals, bronze final and final) hotels have been identified in Cardiff, Marseille and Paris.

The eight quarter-final teams will arrive in their match cities on Tuesday, October 2nd.

WORLD CUP 2007 TEAM BASE CAMPS

Argentina: Paris (first week) then Lyon

Australia: Montpellier

Canada: Bordeaux

England: Versailles

Fiji: Moissac

France: Marcoussis

Georgia: Near Villefranche-sur-Saône

IRELAND:Bordeaux

Italy: Marseille and Saint Rémy de Provence

Japan: Near Toulouse

New Zealand: Marseille and Aix-en-Provence

Namibia: Near Marseille

Romania: To be confirmed

Samoa: Near Paris

Scotland: St Etienne

South Africa: Seine-Saint-Denis/Paris

USA: (Near Lille for first match then) Lyon

Wales: Pornichet/Saint-Nazaire

Repechage 1: To be confirmed

Repechage 2: To be confirmed

John O'Sullivan

John O'Sullivan

John O'Sullivan is an Irish Times sports writer