The first Rugby World Cup was hosted by both New Zealand and Australia in 1987, and was won by the 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.

On the whole the tournament witnessed fairly one-sided matches, 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. 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 by 29 points to 9. The New Zealand team was captained by David Kirk and included such rugby greats as; Sean Fitzpatrick, John Kirwan, Grant Fox and Michael Jones.

Participating nations

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• Africa

• Americas

• Oceania

• Asia

• Europe

Format

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The teams were divided into four pools of four nations, with the top two in each pool moving on to the knockout quarter-final stage. :

• 2 points for a win
• 1 points for a draw
• 0 points for a loss

Results

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Pool 1

{| class="wikitable"

!width=165|Team Played Won Drawn Lost For Against Points 33108416 321100324 31239992 33481230

Pool 2

{| class="wikitable"

!width=165|Team Played Won Drawn Lost For Against Points 3382316 32184414 31265902 3329980

Pool 3

{| class="wikitable"

!width=165|Team Played Won Drawn Lost For Against Points 33190346 312561012 312401102 31249902

Pool 4

{| class="wikitable"

!width=165|Team Played Won Drawn Lost For Against Points 321145445 321135695 312611302 33531510

Knock-out stages

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Third-place play-off

Final

1987 in Australia | 1987 in sports | Rugby union in Australia | Rugby union in New Zealand | Rugby World Cup | Category:Sports festivals hosted in Australia

Coupe du monde de rugby 1987 | Verdensmesterskapet i rugby union 1987