2007 Rugby World Cup
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The 2007 Rugby World Cup was the sixth Rugby World Cup. It was hosted by France from September 7 to October 20 of 2007. France won the right to host the event in 2003, beating a bid from England.
Over 90 nations participated in the regional qualifying competitions that started in 2004. The eight quarter-finalists from the 2003 event automatically qualified, twelve further nations have qualified. Portugal is the only debutant nation at the 2007 World Cup.
This World Cup will have 20 nations contesting 48 matches over 44 days. Forty-two matches will be spread between ten French cities, with four matches to be held in Cardiff, Wales and two matches in Edinburgh, Scotland.
England announced in September of 2001 that they would be launching a solo bid to host the tournament, without the help of the other home unions. Both the 1991 and 1999 World Cups were hosted throughout the home nations, with England and Wales being the main host respectively. A spokesman for the Rugby Football Union (RFU) said "We are quite happy to stage it on our own. We have all the resources to do a very good job."[1] England, with France, both applied to be solo hosts of the tournament.[2] Tender document for the 2007 bidding process was due out on October 31, 2001.
[edit] Qualifying
The eight quarter-finalists from the 2003 Rugby World Cup all received automatic entry, with the other teams selected from a qualifying series around the world. Ten of the twenty positions available in the tournament were filled by regional qualifiers, with an additional two being filled by repechage qualification. The qualifying tournament was divided into five regional groups; Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania.[3] Including the automatic qualifiers, over 90 nations were in qualifying contention for the final tournament.
In July of 2005, both Samoa and Fiji were confirmed as the qualifiers from Oceania, as Oceania 1 and 2 respectively.[4] In July of the following year, Argentina qualified as Americas 1 by defeating Uruguay 26-0 in Buenos Aires.[5] Americas 2 was filled in August when Canada defeated the United States 56-7 in Newfoundland.[6] The United States went on to qualify as Americas 3 after beating Uruguay comfortably over two legs in early October.[7] That month also saw Italy qualify as Europe 1 after defeating Russia 67-7 in Moscow, reaching the first place in its qualifying group; Romania defeated Spain 43-20 in Madrid, and also qualified for the World Cup as Europe 2.[8]
Namibia qualified for their third consecutive World Cup after they earned their spot in France by defeating Morocco over two legs in November.[9] In late 2006, it was announced that the IRB had withdrawn Colombo as the venue of the final Asian qualifying tournament due to security problems.[10] Japan won the only Asian allocation after the tournament was moved to Hong Kong.[11] Georgia was 14 points the better of Portugal over two legs to claim the last European place.[11] Tonga qualified through repechage after defeating Korea.[12]
The final spot in Pool C went to Portugal, after beating Uruguay 24-23 on aggregate. Portugal's qualification was the only change in the 20-team roster from the 2003 Rugby World Cup, replacing Uruguay. In qualifying for the World Cup, Portugal became the first wholly amateur team to compete in the sport's premier international competition since the dawn of the professional era.
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