Rugby World Cup qualification
Rugby World Cup qualification is a process that determines which nations will compete at the Rugby World Cup, a men's rugby union competition.
Unlike previous tournaments the 2011 World Cup would be the first to be contested by twelve automatic qualifiers / seeds and eight qualifiers; this format has been retained for future tournaments.
The qualification system for the remaining eight places will be region-based with Europe and the Americas allocated two qualifying places, Africa, Asia and Oceania one place each, with the last place determined by a play-off.
History
The first Rugby World Cup, the tournament of 1987 held no qualifying tournament. Instead, all the then members of the International Rugby Board were automatically included in the competition. These members accounted for seven of the 16 available positions. The remaining positions were filled by invitation.The next tournament, the 1991 Rugby World Cup implemented a qualifying process. Eight of the 16 available positions were filled by nations automatically, however, the remaining positions would be determined by a 25 nation qualifying tournament. The following tournament, the 1995 Rugby World Cup, increased the qualifying tournament to 43 nations. In addition to the eight previous quarterfinalists, hosts South Africa were granted automatic entry.
The approach changed again for the 1999 Rugby World Cup, as only the hosts and the defending champions, the runners-up, the third place play-off winners from the 1995 cup were to gain automatic entry, as opposed to the elite eight nations. The 1999 world cup also saw the introduction of a repechage, a second chance for teams that had finished runners-up in each qualifying zone. Again, the number of nations participating in the qualifying events increased, from 43 to 63.
81 teams entered qualifying for the 2003 Rugby World Cup. The eight quarter-finalists from the previous world cup gained automatic qualification with another twelve berths open to qualifiers. Teams from five continents, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe and the Americas gained entry to the competition. Qualification came through a mixture of round robin tournaments, knockout and repechage.
A similar mixture of round robin tournaments, knockout and repechage was used for the qualification for the 2007 Rugby World Cup involving 86 teams, which together with the 8 teams which have qualified automatically brought to 94 the total number of teams participating in the 2007 tournament.
In addition to the eight quarterfinalists at the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the four teams finishing in third place in their respective pools qualified automatically for the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Various existing regional tournaments were incorporated into the qualification process for the remaining eight berths. Including teams that failed to qualify for official qualifying tournaments, 88 teams participated in the qualification process, bringing the total number of teams participating in the 2011 tournament to 100.
A total of nine teams to go through qualifying have done so with a 100% records. Of these four only faced qualifying once, and one had to qualify twice. Three of the others all held regional dominance. The ninth of the teams with 100% records, Samoa, has had more challenging routes to maintain their 100% qualifying record.
Qualification competition entrants over time
| Continental zone | 1987 Qualification berths by continent
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