A round-robin format has been introduced for the 37th World Rugby Classic, which will be held next month.

Argentina Legends, Classic Canada, Classic Eagles, Italian Classic, Classic Lions and champions Classic Springboks will play three matches each from November 1 to 8, with the team topping the league declared winners of the tournament.

A final between the top teams from two groups of four used to decide the champions but John Kane, president of the tournament, cited a reduction in the number of teams as the main reason for implementing the new format.

“We changed the format from knockouts to round-robin due to the teams being down from eight to six,” Kane told The Royal Gazette.

“It’s on a league basis and each team was seeded based on past results. We divided them into two groups and everybody gets to play somebody in each group.

“A team will get four points for a win, a bonus point for scoring four tries and for losing by less than seven points. After all the teams have played three matches each, the team with the most points is our winner.

“The Irish team dropped out very early on but we couldn’t go with seven, so we had to reduce the teams to six.

“When the Irish pulled out, we had to make a decision between Italy and France. In the end, the Italians remained and the French are out this year, but they'll be back next year.

“We’ll try to find somebody else next year to take the number back to eight. If it’s not the Irish or New Zealand, we’ll find somebody to bring them back up.”

Another notable addition is the introduction of sevens rugby on November 5. The four teams not in action on that day are playing in the fast-paced version, where they have an opportunity to claim silverware.

“Because we’ve only got one game on Wednesday night, we put in a sevens tournament to be played between the other four teams,” Kane said.

“The four teams that are not playing that night are basically the teams that are playing for the sevens trophy.

“We’ll have a knockout for that, with the winners of the two matches to play in the final for the trophy.”