1987 Rugby World Cup

1987 Rugby World Cup

Tournament details
Host nations	New Zealand  Australia
Dates	22 May – 20 June (30 days)
No. of nations	16
Final positions
Champions	New Zealand
Runner-up	France
Third place	Wales
Tournament statistics
Matches played	32
Attendance	478,449 (14,952 per match)
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 World Cup. New Zealand and Australia agreed to co-host the tournament. New Zealand hosted 21 matches (17 pool stage matches, two quarter-finals, the third-place play-off and the final) while Australia hosted 11 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 came in third: 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 (IRFB) members – New Zealand, Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and France. South Africa was unable to compete because of the international sporting 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 declined 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 viable in the long term. 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.^{[citation needed]}

Participating nations[]

There was no qualification for the inaugural World Cup so the tournament comprised the seven 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.^{[citation needed]}

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[]

Referees[]

Kerry Fitzgerald Bob Fordham Fred Howard Roger Quittenton René Hourquet Guy Maurette David Burnett

Stephen Hilditch Dave Bishop  Keith Lawrence Brian Anderson Jim Fleming Derek Bevan Clive Norling

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 nations. There was no qualifying tournament to determine the participants; 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 teams divided into four pools of four, with each team playing the others in their pool once, for a total of three matches per team in the pool stage. Nations were awarded two points for a win, one for a draw and none 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. A standard single-elimination tournament followed, with the losers of the semi-finals contesting an additional play-off match to determine third place.

A total of 32 matches (24 in the pool stage and eight in the knock-out stage) were played in the tournament over 29 days from 22 May to 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
Italy	3	1	0	2	40	110	5	2
Argentina	3	1	0	2	49	90	4	2

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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

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Knockout 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
	7 June – Concord Oval, Sydney
					Australia	24			Third place
	Australia	33
									18 June – Rotorua International Stadium, Rotorua
	Ireland	15
									Wales	22
									Australia	21

Quarter-finals[]

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Semi-finals[]

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Third-place play-off[]

Final[]

Statistics[]

The tournament's top point scorer was New Zealand's Grant Fox, who scored 126 points. Craig Green and John Kirwan scored the most tries, six in total.

Top 10 point scorers

Player	Team	Position	Played	Tries	Conv­ersions	Penal­ties	Drop goals	Total points
Grant Fox	New Zealand	First five-eighth	6	0	30	21	1	126
Michael Lynagh	Australia	Fly-half	6	0	20	12	2	82
Gavin Hastings	Scotland	Fullback	4	3	16	6	0	62
Didier Camberabero	France	Fly-half	5	4	14	3	0	53
Jonathan Webb	England	Fullback	4	0	11	7	0	43
Guy Laporte	France	Fly-half	3	2	11	3	1	42
Paul Thorburn	Wales	Fullback	6	0	11	5	0	37
Mike Kiernan	Ireland	Centre	3	1	7	5	1	36
Severo Koroduadua	Fiji	Fullback	4	0	4	9	0	35
Hugo Porta	Argentina	Fly-half	3	0	3	9	0	33

Broadcasters[]

The event was broadcast in Australia by ABC and in the United Kingdom by the BBC.^{[citation needed]}

References[]