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The '1999 Rugby World Cup', the first to be held in rugby union's professional era,^[1] was hosted by Wales, with some matches also played in England, France, Scotland and Ireland. Only four automatic qualification places were available for the 1999 tournament, which went to the champions (South Africa), runners-up (New Zealand), and third place play-off winners (France) from the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and the host nation (Wales) of the 1999 tournament.
The tournament was expanded to 20 teams (from 16), divided into 5 groups of four teams. Qualification for the final 16 places took place between 63 other nations. The 1999 tournament saw the introduction of a repechage, effectively a second chance for teams that had finished runners-up in each qualifying zone. Uruguay and Tonga were the first nations to profit from the repechage, and took their places alongside fellow qualifiers Australia, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Italy, Argentina, Fiji, Romania, Canada, Namibia, Japan, Spain and the United States.
These 20 nations were split into five pools of four, a scenario that necessitated a quarter-final play-off round involving the five runners-up and best third placed team to decide who would join the pool winners in the last eight. The Millennium Stadium then saw Australia take on the French in an eagerly anticipated final. France had of course reached the inaugural final in 1987, but, just as on that occasion, they simply had nothing left as Australia became the first nation to win the World Cup twice, with a 35-12 triumph.

Contents

Venues

Qualification

Pool stage

Pool 1

Pool 2

Pool 3

Pool 4

Pool 5

Knock-out stage

Quarter-final playoffs

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Third/fourth place playoff

Final

References

External links

Venues

Venues
'City'	'Stadium'	'Capacity'
Saint-Denis	Stade de France	80,000
London	Twickenham Stadium	75,000
Cardiff	Millennium Stadium	74,500
Edinburgh	Murrayfield Stadium	67,500
Glasgow	Hampden Park	52,500
Dublin	Lansdowne Road	49,250
Lens	Stade Félix Bollaert	41,800
Bordeaux	Parc Lescure	34,327
Huddersfield	McAlpine Stadium	28,000
Toulouse	Stade de Toulouse	27,000
Béziers	Stade de la Méditerranée	25,000
Bristol	Ashton Gate	21,500
Leicester	Welford Road Stadium	16,500
Wrexham	Racecourse Ground	15,500
Limerick	Thomond Park	13,500
Belfast	Ravenhill Stadium	12,500
Llanelli	Stradey Park	10,800
Galashiels	Netherdale	6,000

Wales won the right to host the World Cup in 1999. The centrepiece venue for the tournament was the Millennium Stadium, built on the site of the old National Stadium at Cardiff Arms Park at a cost of £126 million from private investment. Other venues in Wales were the Racecourse Ground and Stradey Park. An agreement was reached so that other unions in the Five Nations Championship (England, France, Ireland and Scotland) also hosted matches.
Venues in England included Twickenham, the home of the Rugby Football Union, Ashton Gate and Welford Road, all rugby union venues. The multi-use sports stadium in Huddersfield, McAlpine Stadium was also used. Scottish venues included Murrayfield Stadium, the home of the Scottish Rugby Union, Hampden Park, the home of the Scottish Football Association and the smallest venue in the 1999 tournament, Netherdale, in Galashiels, in the Scottish Borders. Venues in Ireland included Lansdowne Road, the traditional home of the Irish Rugby Football Union, Ravenhill, the Northern Ireland IRFU owned venue and Thomond Park. France used five venues, the most of any nation, including the French national stadium Stade de France which hosted the 1998 FIFA World Cup.

Qualification

See ''1999 Rugby World Cup qualifying''
The following 20 teams, shown by region, qualified for the 1999 Rugby World Cup. Of the 20 teams, only four of those places were automatically allocated and did not have to play any qualification matches. These went to the champions, runners-up and the third placed nations at the 1995 and the tournament host, Wales. A record 65 nations from five continents were therefore involved in the qualification process designed to fill the remaining 16 spots.

★ 'Africa' ★ ★ ★ ★ (automatic qualifier; champion in 1995) ★ 'Americas' ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 'Oceania' ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ (automatic qualifier; runner-up in 1995) ★ ★ ★ ★

★ 'Asia' ★ ★ ★ 'Europe' ★ ★ ★ ★ (automatic qualifier; third place in 1995) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ (automatic qualifier; host nation)

Pool stage

Pool 1

:

Team	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against	Points
	3	0	0	132	35	'6'
	2	0	1	120	58	'4'
	1	0	2	42	97	'2'
	0	0	3	18	122	'0'

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Pool 2

:

Team	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against	Points
	3	0	0	176	28	'6'
	2	0	1	184	47	'4'
	1	0	2	48	171	'2'
	0	0	3	35	196	'0'

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Pool 3

:

Team	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against	Points
	3	0	0	108	52	'6'
	2	0	1	124	68	'4'
	1	0	2	114	82	'2'
	0	0	3	28	186	'0'

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Pool 4

:

Team	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against	Points
	2	0	1	118	71	'4'
	2	0	1	83	51	'4'
	2	0	1	97	72	'4'
	0	0	3	36	140	'0'

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Pool 5

:

Team	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against	Points
	3	0	0	135	31	'6'
	2	0	1	100	45	'4'
	1	0	2	50	126	'2'
	0	0	3	52	135	'0'

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Knock-out stage

Quarter-final playoffs

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Quarter-finals

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Semi-finals

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Third/fourth place playoff

Final

1999 Rugby World Cup Winners
Italy 'Australia' 'Second Title'

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References

1. The International Rugby Board did not open up the sport to professionals until August 1995, after the previous World Cup had been completed.

External links

★ Rugbyworldcup.com

★ 1999 Rugby World Cup on Worldcupweb.com

★ 1999 Rugby World Cup on SAweb.co.za