1987_Rugby_World_Cup

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1987 Rugby World Cup

The First Rugby World Cup was hosted by New Zealand and Australia in 1987 and was won by New Zealand. Seven of the 16 places were automatically filled by the International Rugby Football Board members – New Zealand, Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and France – with South Africa unable to compete because of the international sports boycott due to apartheid. There was no qualification process to fill the remaining nine spots. Instead invitations were sent out to Argentina, Fiji, Italy, Canada, Romania, Tonga, Japan, Zimbabwe and the United States. This left Western Samoa controversially excluded, despite their better playing standard than some of the teams invited. The USSR were to be invited but they refused the invitation on political grounds, allegedly due to the continued IRB membership of South Africa.

On the whole the tournament witnessed fairly one-sided matches, the seven IRB members proving too strong for the other teams. Half of the 24 matches across the four pools saw one team score 40 or more points. It is therefore no surprise that five of the seven highest-scoring Rugby World Cup matches were witnessed during this tournament, a statistic that is echoed in the ‘most points by an individual’ and ‘most tries by a team’ statistics. New Zealand won the final against France at Eden Park in Auckland 29–9. The New Zealand team was captained by David Kirk, substituting for the injured Andy Dalton, and included such rugby greats as Sean Fitzpatrick, John Kirwan, Grant Fox and Michael Jones.

Stadiums

Australia

City	Stadium	Capacity
Brisbane	Ballymore Stadium	24,000
Sydney	Concord Oval	20,000

New Zealand

City	Stadium	Capacity
Auckland	Eden Park	45,472
Wellington	Athletic Park	39,000
Christchurch	Lancaster Park	36,500
Dunedin	Carisbrook	35,000
Rotorua	Rotorua International Stadium	35,000
Napier	McLean Park	30,000
Hamilton	Waikato Stadium	26,350
Invercargill	Rugby Park Stadium	17,000
Palmerston North	Showgrounds Oval

Participating nations

Africa	Americas	Asia	Europe	Oceania

Format

The World Cup was contested by 16 different nations, in total, playing 32 matches over the duration of the tournament. There was no qualifying tournament to determine the participants, and instead the 16 nations were invited by the International Rugby Football Board to compete. The 16 nations were divided into four pools of four nations, with each nation playing their other pool opponents once, every nation playing three times during the group stages. Nations were awarded 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw and zero for a loss, the top two nations of every pool advanced to the quarter finals. The runners-up of each pool faced the winners of a different pool in the quarter finals. The winners moved on to the semi finals, with the winners then moving onto the final, and the losers of the semi finals contesting a third/fourth place play off.