Rugby World Cup

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

When New Zealand and Australia co-hosted the first Rugby World Cup in 1987, sixteen teams took part, the same field size that held through the tournament's first three editions. That number only started moving in 1999, when the tournament expanded to twenty teams, the size it has held ever since. The next jump is already scheduled rather than merely proposed: the Rugby World Cup will expand again to twenty four teams when Australia hosts in 2027, half again the size of the sixteen-team field that saw New Zealand beat France 29 to 9 in the first final, governed at the time by a body still called the International Rugby Football Board rather than its current name, World Rugby.

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

South Africa stands alone at the top of the Rugby World Cup's honours list, the only nation to have won the tournament four times. New Zealand, the inaugural 1987 champion, has won three times since the tournament began; Australia has won twice; England has won once. That single extra title separating South Africa from New Zealand is the entire margin at the top of a competition that has been contested every four years since 1987, across a field that has grown from sixteen teams to twenty, with twenty four scheduled for 2027, meaning South Africa built its record advantage while competing in exactly the same expanding, increasingly difficult field as everyone chasing it.