The Olympic Stadium in London will host five matches at the 2015 World Cup, with only two club rugby grounds selected among the 13 venues.

Reconstruction work on the Olympic venue, which will become Premier League club West Ham's stadium in 2016, is likely to be halted for the tournament.

"It will ignite some memories and hopefully spark a few new ones too," International Rugby Board chief executive Brett Gosper said Thursday as the schedule was released.

The revamped Olympic Stadium, which will have 54,000 seats for the tournament, will stage four pool matches and host the bronze-medal match.

World Cup chief executive Debbie Jevans, who was director of sport for the Olympic organizers, is confident the east London venue will be ready, and it will stage a match before the tournament to test the venue.

"It will absolutely not be a building site," she said. "The roof will in place ... and I'm confident we will have a great venue in 2015."

But Jevans said there are "contingency" plans as part the "risk profile" if venues aren't able to stage matches.

The tournament opens on Sept. 18 with England taking on an Oceania qualifying team, which is likely to be Fiji, at Twickenham.

The home of English rugby will be the busiest ground — with 10 games including two quarterfinals, both semifinals and the final — followed by Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, which has eight fixtures including the other two quarterfinals.

But the only rugby clubs to get matches are Exeter and Gloucester.

By contrast, eight football stadiums will be used for rugby— Wembley and the home grounds of Aston Villa, Brighton, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester City, Milton Keynes Dons and Newcastle.

Organizers defended the decision to shun traditional rugby grounds in favor of larger football venues.

They pointed to the fact that rugby stadiums will host 25 matches while football grounds have 18 games and the multi-purpose Olympic Stadium has the rest. Wembley is restricted to two pool stage matches because it hosts NFL regular season games on Sept. 29 and Oct. 27. "What's really important is that we have taken the game to the whole of the country," Jevans said. "Whilst yes we do have three big stadia in London we have also taken it through the whole of the country."

New Zealand, which hosted the 2011 edition, will open its title defense in Pool C against Argentina at Wembley on Sep. 20, and will stay in London to play at the Olympic Stadium four days later before traveling to Cardiff and Newcastle.

"One of the key talking points will be the four-day turnaround between our first two games but that had been flagged well in advance by Rugby World Cup organizers who were keen to make the schedule more fair and equitable particularly for tier 2 and tier 3 nations," All Blacks manager Darren Shand said. "In fact, we were very supportive of the draw being fairer and were part of the group of countries that suggested it."

In Pool A, Australia's campaign opens against an Oceania nation in Cardiff on Sept. 23, while another two-time champion, South Africa, starts in Pool B against an Asian qualifier at the home of second-tier football club Brighton.

"Playing in parts of the UK that we normally don't see, such as Brighton, Birmingham and Newcastle, is exciting," Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer said.

Millennium Stadium is the only chosen venue outside of England, and Wales will get to play two of its pool stage matches at its home venue.

"The Millennium Stadium has been chosen for good reason," Gosper said. "It's capacity (74,154) and also to give people in the west country of England to get access to big games as well."

Wales, the reigning Six Nations champions, will be playing against two qualifying nations on home soil, with pivotal fixtures against England and Australia both at Twickenham.

The World Cup is taking place during the football season and officials have received assurances from the Premier League and UEFA, which runs the Champions League and Europa League, that they will try to adjust their fixture list to accommodate the rugby.

"While rightly they won't commit, we don't anticipate challenges," Jevans said.