Samoa advanced to the cross regional play-off where they would play a team from Europe for a place in the World Cup; the loser would move to the Repechage.
The Cook Islands were then declared winner of the Oceania Rugby Cup and will advance to the regional playoff to play a team from Asia for a place in the Repechage.
The first round saw the leading three Pacific Nations; Fiji, Samoa and Tonga compete for the two direct qualification spots as Oceania 1 and 2.
The three teams played each other home and away across two years, using the revamped World Rugby Pacific Nations Cup in 2016 and 2017 as the regional tournament.
The third-placed team then advanced to a home and away Cross-Regional play-off series against the winners of round 6 in the European regional qualifiers, Europe 2.