Rugby World Cup 2015
Dates Friday, September 18 to Saturday, October 31, 2015
Discipline Rugby Union First tournament 1987
Host England Venues 13 – read our venue guide here
Teams 20 Pools 4 – read our guides to the pools below:
Pool A |
Pool B |
Pool C |
Pool D |
TV schedule OSN RWC HD will be showing all games live. Check out the full TV schedule here.
Follow You can follow all the results here. Why not join the debate on Twitter with hashtag #RugbyWorldCup.
Trophy The Webb Ellis Cup
Where to watch Click here to learn where the best places to watch the Rugby World Cup in Dubai are.
Format
All teams take part in the group stage, with the winners and runners-up from each pool going through to the knock-out stage.
Group stage
The 20 qualifying teams have been split into four pools of five. All teams are seeded based on the world rankings taken from December 2012. One of each of the four highest-seeded teams goes into each pool, followed by the fifth to eighth and so on. Those teams that reached to tournament via qualification make up the rest.
Each team plays the other once in their respective pool (four games in total). The standard Rugby Union points system, which includes bonus points, is applied.
| Points | |
|---|---|
| Win | 4 points |
| Draw | 2 points |
| Scoring 4 tries or more | 1 point |
| Losing by 7 points or less | 1 point |
The winning team and runner-up from each of the four pools qualifies for the knock-out stages, with the remaining three teams from each eliminated.
Knock-out stage
The knock-out stage consists of the quarter-finals, semi-finals, bronze final and the final itself. The winners of each pool play the runners-up of another pool. Pools A and B are paired together, as are pools C and D.
The four winning teams progress to the semi-finals. After that, the losing semi-finalists face off of third-place honours in the bronze final, while the two winning semi-finalists compete in the final itself.
History of the tournament
It seems remarkable that a sport as popular as Rugby Union didn’t have its own world cup tournament until 1987. At the time, Union’s most popular international tournament was the Five Nations (previously known as the Home Nations, and now called the Six Nations), and although it also featured in the Olympics, it as agreed that it needed its own global event.
Australia and New Zealand hosted the first tournament, with the latter going on to win. Taking place every four years, it has been won by only four teams over the seven tournaments: New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa having won it twice, while England has won it once – the only European winners to date.
