1987 Rugby World Cup
The first Rugby Union World Cup was held from 22 May to 20 June 1987 in New Zealand and Australia. World Champions were the New Zealand All Blacks, who defeated the French in the final at Auckland.
At the beginning of the 1980s the idea of a World Cup came on, but was rejected in 1983 at a meeting of the IRFB (now IRB). The Australian and New Zealand Association wrote then independently a letter requesting the IRFB to conduct a World Cup. 1985 this idea was despite resistance, especially from the Irish and British delegation members adopted; Australia and New Zealand organized logically the first world championship. The deciding vote came from the South Africans who supported the project, even though they knew that a boycott because of apartheid would make it impossible for them to participate in the competition.
- 4.1 quarterfinals
- 4.2 Semi-finals
- 4.3 3rd place match
- 4.4 final
- 5.1 Teams
- 5.2 Most points scored
- 5.3 Most scored tests
Venues
21 matches were played in New Zealand, 11 in Australia.
Qualification
Automatically eligible to participate were the seven members of the International Rugby Board. In addition to the hosts Australia and New Zealand, this was also England, France, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. South Africa, another member of the IRFB, was expelled in 1984 because of the apartheid policies of the participation; However, other participants also wore teams after games against the Springboks from. For the remaining nine launch sites, there was no qualifying tournament. The teams from Argentina, Fiji, Italy, Japan, Canada, Romania, Zimbabwe, Tonga and the United States were invited by the organizers. The crew of the Soviet Union was also invited, but the Soviet Union refused to participate in the tournament as a political protest against the continued membership of South Africa in IRFB from.
- Africa Zimbabwe Zimbabwe
- America Argentina Argentina
- Canada Canada
- United States United States
- Oceania Australia Australia
- Fiji Fiji
- New Zealand New Zealand
- Tonga Tonga
- Asia Japan Japan
- Europe England England
- France France
- Ireland Ireland
- Italy Italy
- Romania 1965 Romania
- Scotland Scotland
- Wales
Preliminary round
For a victory, there were two points, one point for a draw and no points for a loss. The top two teams in each group qualified for the quarter-finals.