Rugby World Cup was conceived in late 1983 when the Australian Rugby Union and the New Zealand Rugby Football Union had each independently written to the International Rugby Board seeking to conduct a World Cup tournament.

In 1985 the IRB approved for the inaugural Rugby World Cup to be jointly staged in Australia and New Zealand in May and June of 1987.

Rugby World Cup 1987 consisted of 16 invited countries with both semi-finals to be played in Australia with the final and third/fourth play-off matches to be both played in New Zealand.

Rugby World Cup 1999 was broadcast to over 150 countries reaching a cumulative audience of over 3 billion people.

In 2003, a total of 20 teams, with eight quarter-finalists from 1999 gaining automatic entry, will take part.


PREVIOUS WORLD CUP FINALS

YEAR	MATCH RESULTS	CHAMPIONS
1987	New Zealand 29 - France 9	New Zealand
1991	Australia 12 - England 6	Australia
1995	South Africa 15 - New Zealand 12	South Africa
1999	Australia 35 - France 12	Australia

SOME RUGBY WORLD CUP EVENT STATISTICS

YEAR	MATCH ATTENDANCE	WORLD TV ATTENDANCE
1987	600,000	300 million
1991	1 million	1.75 billion
1995	1 million	2.67 billion
1999	1.75 million	Over 3 billion