The All Blacks will know what route they will take to begin their bid for a third consecutive Rugby World Cup crown later this evening.

The city of Kyoto in central Japan hosts the draw for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, starting just after 8 o'clock.

All Black coach Steve Hansen is one of the rugby luminaries who will help pick the marbles out of the five pots to decide the make-up of the four pools for the tournament.

Before he departed for Japan, Hansen's assistant coach Ian Foster had some sage advice for his boss.

"Just choose smartly," said a chuckling Foster.

"He's picking out some pretty important marbles so we'll see what happens."

The All Blacks are in the first of five bands due to them being the top side on World Rugby rankings.

England, Australia and Ireland round out the first band with Wales, Scotland, France and South Africa the remaining seeded teams the second band.

However it's the presence of 2015 semi-finalists Argentina in the third band that has Foster seeing this draw as being different to previous ones.

After a stellar tournament in England, Los Pumas have seen their ranking plummet to ninth, which saw them miss out on being a seeded team.

One of the myriad of possibilities within the draw could see a Rugby Championship dominated pool with New Zealand or Australia, South Africa and Argentina.

There's also the chance that another Southern Hemisphere side like Tonga could be in the mix too.

Foster said from the point of view of playing those sides regularly, it would nice not to have that one.

However Foster, who'll watch the draw from home, is philosophical about the whole thing.

"It is what it is," he said with a knowing grin and a shrug of the shoulders.

"Every World Cup people debate about what's the easiest way or the hard way to get through the pool.

"What we [the All Blacks] have learnt over the last few tournaments is to take what's in front of you and give it a crack."