England, Wales and Australia were all drawn together in a potential 'group of death' when the draw for the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England was made yesterday.
The trio all found themselves in Pool A at a draw conducted at London's Tate Modern gallery.
This means one of the sport's traditional powers will be knocked out before the quarter-finals, with only the top two teams from each of the four pools going through to the knockout stages.
Wales were beaten 14-12 by Australia, twice the world champions, in Cardiff on Saturday - their eighth straight defeat by the Wallabies. England are currently in confident mood after their 38-21 victory over reigning world champions New Zealand at Twickenham.
"It is definitely a pretty tough pool," England coach Stuart Lancaster said. "To win the World Cup you have to win big games and I have got a huge amount of respect for what Wales have done recently.
"We know their squad pretty well, it is a young side and a lot of them will still be around in 2015. Australia have just beaten us and if you look at the age and profile of their squad, they have got some young lads as well. We will look forward to it."