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 (1st title)
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. It was co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia – 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 tournament was won by New Zealand, who were the strong favourites and won all their matches comfortably. 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. Wales finished third, and Australia fourth, after conceding crucial tries in the dying seconds of both their semi-final against France and the third-place play-off against Wales.

Seven of the sixteen participating teams were 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. Invitations were given 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] There was no qualification process for the tournament.

The tournament witnessed a number of one-sided matches, with the seven 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. The tournament was seen as a major success and proved that the event was viable in the long term.

The tournament comprised the seven members of the IRFB, and nine teams invited by the IRFB; there was no qualification process for teams.

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]}
• Soviet Union were to be invited but declined. ^{[citation needed]}

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

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.

Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	T	Pts	Qualification
Australia	3	3	0	0	108	41	+67	18	6	Knockout stage
England	3	2	0	1	100	32	+68	15	4
United States	3	1	0	2	39	99	−60	5	2
Japan	3	0	0	3	48	123	−75	7	0

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Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	T	Pts	Qualification
Wales	3	3	0	0	82	31	+51	13	6	Knockout stage
Ireland	3	2	0	1	84	41	+43	11	4
Canada	3	1	0	2	65	91	−26	8	2
Tonga	3	0	0	3	30	98	−68	3	0

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Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	T	Pts	Qualification
New Zealand	3	3	0	0	190	34	+156	30	6	Knockout stage
Fiji	3	1	0	2	56	101	−45	6	2[a]
Italy	3	1	0	2	40	110	−70	5	2[a]
Argentina	3	1	0	2	49	90	−41	4	2[a]

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Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	T	Pts	Qualification
France	3	2	1	0	145	44	+101	25	5[a]	Knockout stage
Scotland	3	2	1	0	135	69	+66	22	5[a]
Romania	3	1	0	2	61	130	−69	6	2
Zimbabwe	3	0	0	3	53	151	−98	5	0

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

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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	Fly-half	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

The event was broadcast in Australia by ABC and by TVNZ in New Zealand as host broadcasters supplying their pictures to broadcasters around the world and in the United Kingdom by the BBC and in Ireland by RTÉ.^{[citation needed]}

• Overview at rugbyworldcup.com