The qualification process for the 2015 Rugby World Cup began during the pool stages of the 2011 tournament in New Zealand, during which the top three teams from each of the four pools were awarded automatic qualification for the 2015 event. A further eight teams qualified through regional tournaments and the repechage process. The tournament was held in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

; it began on 18 September 2015 and finished on 31 October.

Qualifiers

Qualification process

Qualification started in the pool stage of RWC 2011. 12 teams received an automatic qualification berth by finishing in the top 3 positions of their respective pools. A further 8 berths for the tournament were then available through regional tournaments and the

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 ...

process. The non-automatic qualification process began on 24 March 2012, by the end of which 80 teams had competed over 184 matches. The pool draw for the 2015 Rugby World Cup took place on 3 December 2012. As with the 2011 tournament, the top 12 teams were grouped into 3 bands for the pool draw as per their IRB Rankings on that date, while the other 8 qualifying teams were split into a fourth and fifth band. One team from each band was drawn into each pool.

Regional qualification

Seven of the final eight places were assigned to different regions by the IRB; the last place was decided by a repechage series. Regional Qualification began on 24 March 2012, when

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

hosted and defeated

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...

. The match was refereed by

Craig Joubert Craig Paul Joubert (born 8 November 1977) is a South African professional rugby union referee and a Referee Talent Development Coach at World Rugby. Joubert officiated in domestic first class matches in South Africa since 2003, in matches in th ...

, who refereed the 2011 Rugby World Cup Final. In all, 96 national teams have been involved in the 2015 World Cup - 12 as automatic qualifiers and 84 as entrants in the qualification rounds. *One additional team, Cameroon, withdrew prior to playing any games.
†During the qualification cycle, FIRA–AER changed its name to Rugby Europe.

Repechage qualification

Following the end of the regional qualification process, four teams (one from each region, except Oceania) took part in the

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 ...

process for the final spot at the Rugby World Cup. The final was played over a two-match home and away basis. The team with the higher aggregate score,

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 ...

, became the 20th and final team at the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

Sources

External links

Rugby World Cup qualifyingWorld Cup Qualifier Statistics
{{Rugby Union World Cup