2011 Rugby
World Cup qualifying began at the
2007 tournament in France, where twelve teams (the first three in each of the four pools) earned a place in the finals of the tournament, this automatically qualified them for the
2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.
After much speculation, it was confirmed on 30 November 2007 that 20 teams would contest the next edition of the tournament. The qualification system for the remaining eight places was region-based, with Europe and the Americas allocated two qualifying places, Africa, Asia and Oceania one place each, and the last place determined by a playoff.
With 79 teams participating in regional qualifying competitions, and 12 teams qualifying automatically, 91 nations were involved in the process.
Qualified teams
*Africa
**
(Africa 1)
**
(automatic qualifier/champion)
*Americas
**
(automatic qualifier)
**
(Americas 1)
**
(Americas 2)
*Asia
**
(Asia 1)
*Europe
**
(automatic qualifier)
**
(automatic qualifier)
**
(Europe 1)
**
(automatic qualifier)
**
(automatic qualifier)
**
(Europe 2)
**
(repechage)
**
(automatic qualifier)
**
(automatic qualifier)
*Oceania
**
(automatic qualifier)
**
(automatic qualifier/host)
**
(automatic qualifier)
**
(automatic qualifier)
**
(Oceania 1)
Regional qualifiers
Eight nations qualified from regional competitions: seven qualified directly through their region, and the eighth from a four-nation repechage play-off for the final spot.
Final place play-off
The twentieth place at the 2011 tournament was determined by a
repechage
Repechage (; french: repêchage, "fishing out, rescuing") is a practice in series competitions that allows participants who failed to meet qualifying standards by a small margin to continue to the next round. A well known example is the wild car ...
play-off which involved the third-place teams from the American and European qualifying tournaments (
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
and
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
). On a home and away basis, Romania prevailed by winning 32–12 in Bucharest, preceded by a 21–21 draw in Montevideo. It competed in Pool B.
Both nations had won the repechage semi-finals. Those were conducted as single matches, with the European and African qualifiers drawn into one semi-final and the Asian and Americas qualifiers drawn into the other. Romania beat Tunisia 56–13 and Uruguay had the upper hand over Kazakhstan winning 44–7. Both matches were hosted by the team with the higher
IRB World Ranking when the two teams to play became known.
Sources
External links
RWC 2011 qualifying overview IRB.com
ESPN
*
ttp://www.espnscrum.com/scrum/rugby/match/123232.html 2011 Rugby World Cup Qualifier, Repechage – Montevideo, 13 November 2010 ESPN
{{Rugby Union World Cup