Japan at the Rugby World Cup won three games out of four in pool play, the same as Scotland and South Africa, but unlike the other two, Japan did not get any bonus points, so the other two qualified for the quarter-finals. Japan's first victory was a 52–8 win over Zimbabwe at the 1991 tournament under coach Hiroaki Shukuzawa. Their worst defeat came at the 1995 Rugby World Cup, when they lost to New Zealand by 145–17, in a defeat blamed for setting the development of rugby union in Japan back by several years. Since then, in the 2003 World Cup, held in Australia, Japan coached
Rugby World Cup hosts that the World Cup has to be held in one of our senior core markets on a regular basis . . . However, the commercial success of the tournament also means we can now consider placing the tournament in new developing markets to assist the game's strategic growth." The first Rugby World Cup was hosted by Australia and New Zealand after the Australian Rugby Union and the New Zealand Rugby Union each independently wrote to the International Rugby Board seeking to conduct a World Cup tournament. The final was played in Auckland, New Zealand at Eden Park and won by