1987 Rugby World Cup

1987 Rugby World Cup

Tournament details
Host nations	New Zealand  Australia
Dates	22 May – 20 June 1987
No. of nations	16
Final positions
Champions	New Zealand
Runner-up	France
Third-place	Wales
Tournament statistics
Matches played	32
Top scorer(s)	Grant Fox (126)
Most tries	Craig Green John Kirwan (6 tries each)
1991 →

The 1987 Rugby World Cup was the first Rugby Union World Cup. New Zealand and Australia agreed to co-host the tournament. New Zealand hosted 20 matches — 17 pool stage matches, two quarter-finals and the final. Australia as the junior partner hosted 12 matches — seven pool matches, two quarter-finals and both semi-finals. The event was won by co-hosts New Zealand who were the strong favourites, and won all their matches comfortably. France were losing finalists, and Wales surprise third-place winners: Australia, having been second favourites, finished fourth after conceding crucial tries in the dying seconds of both the semi-final against France and the third-place play-off against Wales.

Sixteen teams competed in the inaugural tournament. Seven of the 16 places were automatically filled by the International Rugby Football Board members—New Zealand, Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and France. South Africa was 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 IRFB membership of South Africa.^[1]

The tournament witnessed a number of one-sided matches, with the seven traditional IRFB 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. New Zealand defeated France 29–9 in the final at Eden Park in Auckland. The New Zealand team was captained by David Kirk, and included such rugby greats as Sean Fitzpatrick, John Kirwan, Grant Fox and Michael Jones. The tournament was seen as a major success and proved that the event was here to stay. It also led to many countries joining the International Rugby Football Board which in turn led the IRFB to become the true authority for the running of international rugby union.

Participating nations

There was no qualification for the inaugural World Cup so the tournament comprised the seven then-members of the IRFB, with the remaining nine places filled by teams invited by the IRFB.

IRFB Member Nations	Invited Nations
England  France  Ireland  Australia  New Zealand  Scotland  Wales	Zimbabwe  Argentina  Canada  United States  Japan  Italy  Romania  Fiji  Tonga

• South Africa was excluded due to its pro apartheid policies.
• Soviet Union were to be invited but declined.
• Western Samoa was not invited despite having a better record than some of the other invited nations.

Venues

Auckland	Wellington	Christchurch	Dunedin
Eden Park	Athletic Park	Lancaster Park	Carisbrook
Capacity: 48,000	Capacity: 39,000	Capacity: 36,500	Capacity: 35,000
Rotorua	Napier	Hamilton	Brisbane
Rotorua International Stadium	McLean Park	Rugby Park	Ballymore Stadium
Capacity: 35,000	Capacity: 30,000	Capacity: 30,000	Capacity: 24,000
Sydney	Invercargill	Palmerston North
Concord Oval	Rugby Park Stadium	Showgrounds Oval
Capacity: 20,000	Capacity: 30,000	Capacity: 20,000

Squads

Pools and format

Pool 1	Pool 2	Pool 3	Pool 4
Australia  England  Japan  United States	Canada  Ireland  Tonga  Wales	Argentina  Fiji  Italy  New Zealand	France  Romania  Scotland  Zimbabwe

• Pool 1 was played in Australia
• Pool 2 was played with five matches held in New Zealand and one in Australia
• Pool 3 was played in New Zealand
• Pool 4 was played in New Zealand

The inaugural World Cup was contested by 16 different nations. 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 simple 16 team pool/knock-out format was used with the sixteen nations divided into four pools of four nations, with each nation playing their other pool opponents once, every nation playing three times during the pool stages. Nations were awarded 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw and zero for a loss: teams finishing level on points were separated by tries scored, rather than total points difference (had it been otherwise, Argentina would have taken second place in Group C ahead of Fiji, although France would still have won Group D.) 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.

Points System

The points system that was used in the pool stage was:

• 2 points for a win
• 1 point for a draw
• 0 points for playing

A total of 32 matches (24 Pool Stage & 8 Knock-out) were played throughout the tournament over 29 days from Friday 22 May 1987 to Saturday 20 June 1987.

Pool stage

Pool 1

Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	tries	Pts
Australia	3	3	0	0	108	41	18	6
England	3	2	0	1	100	32	15	4
United States	3	1	0	2	39	99	5	2
Japan	3	0	0	3	48	123	7	0

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Pool 2

Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	tries	Pts
Wales	3	3	0	0	82	31	13	6
Ireland	3	2	0	1	84	41	11	4
Canada	3	1	0	2	65	90	7	2
Tonga	3	0	0	3	29	98	3	0

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Pool 3

Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	tries	Pts
New Zealand	3	3	0	0	190	34	30	6
Fiji	3	1	0	2	56	101	6	2
Argentina	3	1	0	2	49	90	4	2
Italy	3	1	0	2	40	110	5	2

Fiji qualified for the highest number of tries (Fiji 6, Italy 5, Argentina 4)

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Pool 4

Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	tries	Pts
France	3	2	1	0	145	44	25	5
Scotland	3	2	1	0	135	69	22	5
Romania	3	1	0	2	61	130	5	2
Zimbabwe	3	0	0	3	53	151	5	0

France qualify as pool winner having scored three tries while Scotland scored two in their drawn match 20 all.

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Knock-out stage

	Quarter-finals				Semi-finals				Final
	6 June – Lancaster Park, Christchurch
	New Zealand	30
					14 June – Ballymore, Brisbane
	Scotland	3
					New Zealand	49
	8 June – Ballymore, Brisbane
					Wales	6
	Wales	16
									20 June – Eden Park, Auckland
	England	3
									New Zealand	29
	7 June – Eden Park, Auckland
									France	9
	France	31
					13 June – Concord Oval, Sydney
	Fiji	16
					France	30			Third place
	7 June – Concord Oval, Sydney
					Australia	24
	Australia	33							Wales	22
	Ireland	15							Australia	21
									18 June – Rotorua International Stadium, Rotorua

Quarter-finals

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Semi-finals

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Third-place play-off

Final

Broadcasters

The event was broadcast in Australia by ABC and in the United Kingdom by the BBC.

Notes

References

External links

• Official Rugby World Cup Site
• Full Results and Statistics at ESPN
• Origins of the 1987 World Cup

Preceded by Inaugural	Rugby World Cup 1987 New Zealand	Succeeded by 1991 Rugby World Cup