2021 Rugby World Cup
The 2021 Rugby World Cup is scheduled to be the ninth edition of the Rugby World Cup for women, to be held in New Zealand in the cities of Auckland and Whangārei. It was originally to be held in 2021, but was officially postponed by a year in March 2021 due to COVID-19.[1] This will be the first women's Rugby World Cup to be held in the southern hemisphere. The eighth World Cup was played in 2017 in Dublin and Belfast, setting record attendances and viewership numbers.[2][3]
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| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| Host nation |  New Zealand |
| Dates | 8 October – 12 November 2022 |
| No. of nations | 12 |
| Tournament statistics | |
| Matches played | 26 |
← 2017 2025 → | |
In May 2018, it was announced that the format of the World Cup would be changing for the next World Cup with classification matches being replaced with quarter finals.[4][5]
On 21 August 2019, World Rugby announced that gender designations would be removed from the title of the women's World Cup. All World Cup tournaments from 2021 forward, whether for men or women, will be officially called the "Rugby World Cup" with a year designation.[6]
It was originally scheduled to be held between 18 September and 16 October 2021. On 2 March 2021, World Rugby announced it recommended to postpone the tournament to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic (with the decision to be officially made later the following week), as "it has become clear in recent discussions with key partners including New Zealand Rugby, the New Zealand government and participating unions, that, given the scale of the event and the COVID-19 related uncertainties, it is just not possible to deliver the environment for all teams to be the best that they can be on the sport's greatest stage."[7]
New dates and branding for the tournament were revealed on 12 May 2021, with the window being increased from 35 to 43 days, from 8 October to 12 November 2022.[8]
New Zealand are the defending champions.
It will mark the last time with 12 teams before expanding into 16 from 2025.
Host selection
The schedule for World Rugby to select a host country is:
- 31 May 2018 — Unions formally confirm an expression of interest in bidding. Six unions confirmed their interest in bidding — four European nations (France, England, Wales, and Portugal); and two southern hemisphere nations (New Zealand and Australia).
- 10 August 2018 — Unions submit bids to World Rugby. Both Australia and New Zealand have publicly announced that they have submitted bids to host the tournament, which has never been held in the southern hemisphere.
- 14 November 2018 — World Rugby Council selects tournament host in Dublin.[9]
New Zealand will host the 2021 Rugby World Cup, as announced by World Rugby on 14 November 2018. It will be the first women's Rugby World Cup to be held in the southern hemisphere.
Venues
Three venues are set to host and all are on the North Island. Three opening games will be hosted at New Zealand's national stadium Eden Park. Furthermore, it will also host the semi-finals, 3rd place play-off and final. Other pool games as well as the quarter-finals will be held at Semenoff Stadium and Waitakere Stadium.
| Auckland | Whangārei | Auckland |
|---|---|---|
| Eden Park | Semenoff Stadium | Waitakere Stadium |
| Capacity: 60,000 | Capacity: 30,000 | Capacity: 4,901 |
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Qualifying
New Zealand, the host nation, had already qualified automatically winning the 2017 tournament before being announced as hosts. A further six teams (England, France, United States, Canada, Australia and Wales) qualified automatically as top seven finishers at the 2017 tournament. Scotland was announced as the winner of the repechage tournament on 25 February 2022.
Qualified teams
| Africa | Americas | Asia | Europe | Oceania | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic Qualifiers |
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| Regional Qualifiers |
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| Cross-Regional Repechage play-off [lower-alpha 1] |
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| Repechage tournament |
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| Qualified team |
- South America/Africa play-off: South America 1 will progress to a play-off with the second-placed team from Africa to determine the fourth team to compete in the Repechage. Repechage tournament: The final team to qualify for RWC 2021 will be decided via the new Repechage tournament, which will take place in 2020. The tournament will consist of the second placed teams in the Asia, Europe and Oceania regional tournaments and the winner of the play-off between South America and second-placed team from the Africa regional qualifier.
- Samoa withdrew from the Repechage tournament due to COVID-19 related restrictions.
| Region | Team | Qualification method |
Previous apps |
Previous best result | World Rugby Ranking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Africa |  South Africa |
2019 Rugby Africa Women's Cup winners | 3 | Tenth place (2010, 2014) | 13 |
| Asia |  Japan |
2021 Asia Rugby Women's Championship winners (by World Rankings) |
4 | Eighth place (1994) | 12 |
| Europe |  England |
Top 7 in 2017 | 8 | Champions (1994, 2014) | 1 |
 France |
Top 7 in 2017 | 8 | Third place (1991, 1994, 2002, 2006, 2014, 2017) | 3 | |
 Italy |
European Qualification tournament winners | 4 | Plate semi-finals (Seventh/Eighth place) (1991) | 8 | |
 Wales |
Top 7 in 2017 | 6 | Fourth place (1994) | 11 | |
 Scotland |
Final Qualification Tournament winners | 5 | Fifth place (1994) | 9 | |
| North America | .svg.png.webp){kind=small} Canada |
Top 7 in 2017 | 8 | Runners-up (2014) | 4 |
 United States |
Top 7 in 2017 | 8 | Champions (1991) | 6 | |
| Oceania | .svg.png.webp){kind=small} Australia |
Top 7 in 2017 | 6 | Third place (2010) | 5 |
 Fiji |
Oceania play-off winners | 0 | N/A | 21 | |
| New Zealand |
Top 7 in 2017/Hosts | 7 | Champions (1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2017) | 2 |
Draw
Seedings for the pools of the 2021 World Cup were based on the teams' respective World Rugby Rankings. The draw, hosted by sports pundit and former English and British and Irish Lions international Ugo Monye and sports journalist and presenter Elma Smit, was conducted on 20 November 2020 in the SkyCity Theatre in Auckland, and used the World Rankings as of 1 January 2020, before the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the first case in which the Women's World Cup was drawn based on World Rankings instead of classification from the previous World Cup.[10][11] The automatic qualifiers from 2017 were allocated to their respective bands based on their rankings - and the remaining 5 qualifying places were allocated to Bands 3 and 4 based on previous World Cup playing strength:
- Band 1, made up of the top 3 automatic qualifiers, (1–3)
- Band 2, made up of the next 3 automatic qualifiers, (4–6)
- Band 3, made up of the 7th automatic qualifier, Europe 1 and Africa 1
- Band 4, made up of Asia 1, Oceania 1 and Repechage winner
This meant the 12 teams, qualified and qualifiers, were seeded thus:
| Band 1 | Band 2 | Band 3 | Band 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
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The pools were respectively drawn by New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, former Black Ferns internationals, Melodie Robinson and Farah Palmer and former All Blacks international, Dan Carter.
Pool stage
Each pool will be a single round-robin of six games, in which each team will play one match against each of the other teams in the same pool. Teams are awarded four points for a win, two points for a draw. A team that scores four or more tries earns a bonus point, as does a team that loses by less than eight points.
The tournament will comprise twelve teams divided into three pools of four teams. The top two teams in each pool, as well as the best two third-placed teams progress to the quarter-finals.
Fixtures were announced on 28 January 2021.
Pool A
| Pld | W | D | L | TF | PF | PA | PD | BP | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Zealand |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
| Australia |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
| Wales |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
| Scotland |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 October 2022 | New Zealand | v | Australia | Eden Park, Auckland |
| 9 October 2022 | Wales | v | Scotland | Okara Park, Whangārei |
| 15 October 2022 | Australia | v | Scotland | Okara Park, Whangārei |
| 16 October 2022 | New Zealand | v | Wales | Waitakere, Auckland |
| 22 October 2022 | Australia | v | Wales | Okara Park, Whangārei |
| 22 October 2022 | New Zealand | v | Scotland | Okara Park, Whangārei |
Pool B
| Pld | W | D | L | TF | PF | PA | PD | BP | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canada |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
| United States |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
| Italy |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
| Japan |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
| 9 October 2022 | United States | v | Italy | Okara Park, Whangārei |
| 9 October 2022 | Canada | v | Japan | Okara Park, Whangārei |
| 15 October 2022 | United States | v | Japan | Okara Park, Whangārei |
| 16 October 2022 | Canada | v | Italy | Waitakere, Auckland |
| 23 October 2022 | Italy | v | Japan | Waitakere, Auckland |
| 23 October 2022 | Canada | v | United States | Waitakere, Auckland |
Pool C
| Pld | W | D | L | TF | PF | PA | PD | BP | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
| France |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
| South Africa |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
| Fiji |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 October 2022 | France | v | South Africa | Eden Park, Auckland |
| 8 October 2022 | England | v | Fiji | Eden Park, Auckland |
| 15 October 2022 | England | v | France | Okara Park, Whangārei |
| 16 October 2022 | South Africa | v | Fiji | Waitakere, Auckland |
| 22 October 2022 | France | v | Fiji | Okara Park, Whangārei |
| 23 October 2022 | England | v | South Africa | Waitakere, Auckland |
Ranking of third-placed teams
| Pld | W | D | L | TF | PF | PA | PD | BP | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0 | 0 | 0 |
Source: World Rugby
Rules for classification: 1) Points 2) Point differential 3) Points for 4) Most tries scored for
Knockout stage
| Quarter-finals | Semi-finals | Final | ||||||||
| 29 October – Whangārei | ||||||||||
| 5 November – Auckland (Eden) | ||||||||||
| Winner Quarter-Final 1 | ||||||||||
| 29 October – Whangārei | ||||||||||
| Winner Quarter-Final 2 | ||||||||||
| 12 November – Auckland (Eden) | ||||||||||
| Winner Semi-Final 1 | ||||||||||
| 30 October – Auckland (Waitakere) | ||||||||||
| Winner Semi-Final 2 | ||||||||||
| 5 November – Auckland (Eden) | ||||||||||
| Winner Quarter-Final 3 | ||||||||||
| 30 October – Auckland (Waitakere) | ||||||||||
| Winner Quarter-Final 4 | Third place | |||||||||
| 12 November – Auckland (Eden) | ||||||||||
| Loser Semi-Final 1 | ||||||||||
| Loser Semi-Final 2 | ||||||||||
Quarter-finals
Semi-finals
Broadcasting
Spark Sport will be the host broadcaster for the Rugby World Cup, broadcasting all matches live[12] and on demand[13] through its online streaming platform. WarnerBros. Discovery NZ's Three will broadcast a selection of games free-to-air on New Zealand television.
- Australia: Stan Sport and Nine Network
- Canada: TSN[14] and RDS[15]
- France: Eurosport and France Télévisions
Ireland: Eir Sport and RTÉ- New Zealand: Spark Sport[13] and Three
- South Africa: SuperSport
United Kingdom: BT Sport and ITV- USA: NBC Sports[16] and Univision Deportes
See also
- Rugby World Cup (men's)
- Rugby World Cup Sevens (separate tournaments for men and women as part of a single event)
References
- "2021 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand postponed a year". The New Zealand Herald. 10 Mar 2021. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
- Brooke, Colin (2018). "Six countries in running for 2021 Women's RWC, including one you wouldn't expect". Rugby Pass. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
- Philips, Sam (2018). "World Rugby announce 2021 WRWC bidders". Rugby.com. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
- "Women's Rugby World Cup: Format changes announced for 2021 tournament". BBC Sport. 10 May 2018. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
- Orchard, Sara (2018). "Women's Rugby World Cup: Format changes announced for 2021 tournament". BBC. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
- "World Rugby announces gender neutral naming for Rugby World Cup tournaments" (Press release). World Rugby. 21 August 2019. Retrieved 22 August 2019.
- "2021 World Cup set to be postponed for year". BBC Sport. Retrieved 2021-03-03.
- "2021 World Cup new dates revealed". World Rugby. 12 May 2021. Retrieved 12 May 2021.
- World Rugby (2018). "Record hosting interest for Women's Rugby World Cup 2021". World Rugby. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
- "Date set for 2021 Rugby World Cup draw". World Rugby. 19 October 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
- "Confirmation of 2021 Rugby World Cup draw". World Rugby. 12 November 2020. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
- "RWC 2021 - Women's Rugby World cup Live Stream, TV Guide". RugbyOnlineStreams.com. Retrieved 2020-11-26.
- "RWC 2021 set to break new ground as tournament dates are announced". World Rugby. 3 February 2020. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- "Rugby Canada (Design, Hosting, Registration & Administration tools by esportsdeskpro.com)". www.rugbycanada.ca. Archived from the original on 12 October 2016. Retrieved 14 September 2017.
- "Rugby Canada (Design, Hosting, Registration & Administration tools by esportsdeskpro.com)". www.rugbycanada.ca. Retrieved 14 September 2017.
- "NBC Sports Group acquires exclusive US media rights to biggest events". World Rugby. Retrieved 22 May 2017.