The teams are drawn into three pools of four teams each. Each team plays every other team in their pool once. The top two teams from each pool advance to the Cup/Plate brackets while the top 2 third place teams also compete in the Cup/Plate. The other teams from each group play-off for the Challenge Trophy.
Teams
Twelve teams will compete in the tournament with eleven being the core teams that compete throughout the entire season. The invited team for this tournament is Japan who was invited after last competing in the previous round.[1]