RugbyFest 1990

RugbyFest 1990
Tournament details
Host nation	New Zealand
Dates	1990-08-19 – 1990-09-01
No. of nations	4
Champions	New Zealand
Tournament statistics
Matches played	7

RugbyFest 1990 (officially the "Women's World Rugby Festival") was a two-week festival of women's rugby, held in Christchurch, New Zealand between 19 August and 1 September 1990. The event has been inflated sometimes to the status of a mini-world cup. In reality with only four teams taking part, and lacking major nations such as France, England and Canada, it was never that. However it was still a significant step forward – the first ever world-wide multi-regional women's rugby tournament. Held only eight years after the first women's international it was a sign of how much the game had already expanded.

Status of RugbyFest internationals

Teams from Asia, North America and Europe took part alongside local sides in a series of 15-a-side fixtures. Participants included four "national" teams (originally there were to have been five, but Japan withdrew) and featured what are held by many to be the first internationals ever played by New Zealand and USSR/Russia.

In practice there is some dispute about how "official" the national teams were, not least because in some cases there was not yet a national women's governing body to grant official status. So, for example, the USA RFU considers all games by the USA team against "national" XVs at the tournament to be official "tests" whereas the New Zealand (or at least the New Zealand rugby almanack) lists the games as unofficial "New Zealand XV" fixtures - but includes data from the tournament in its official player statistics.^[1] As the IRB provides no "official" ruling or listing of women's rugby internationals (the only list of any sort appears here) it can only be for the reader to decide on the status of these games.

"International" fixtures

Final table

Position	Nation	Games				Points		Table points
Position	Nation	played	won	drawn	lost	for	against	Table points
1	New Zealand	3	3	0	0	73	3	6
2	United States	3	2	0	1	73	9	4
3	Netherlands	3	1	0	2	12	90	2
4	Soviet Union	3	0	0	3	4	52	0

Results

[39]
	26 August 1990	New Zealand	56–0	Netherlands	Christchurch	[1/17/1]

[40]
	28 August 1990	New Zealand	8–0	Soviet Union	Christchurch	[2/1/1]

[41]
	29 August 1990	Netherlands	0–38	United States	Christchurch	[18/4/1]

[42]
	30 August 1990	Netherlands	12–4	Soviet Union	Christchurch	[19/2/1]

[43]
	30 August 1990	New Zealand	9–3	United States	Christchurch	[3/5/1]

[44]
	31 August 1990	United States	32–0	Soviet Union	Christchurch	[6/3/1]

[45]
	1 September 1990	New Zealand	12–4	World XV	Christchurch	[4/1/1]

Other "national team" fixtures

The festival also included a number of games between the "national" teams and local sides. Results were:

Netherlands:

19 August 1990 Canterbury "B" 4, Netherlands 12
20 August 1990 Crusadettes 20, Netherlands 0
20 August 1990 Burnside-Merrivale 6, Netherlands 12
21 August 1990 Canterbury "A" 34, Netherlands 4
22 August 1990 Netherlands w/o v Tokyo
23 August 1990 Paremata-Plimmerton beat Netherlands (score not recorded)
24 August 1990 Netherlands beat Nagoya (score not recorded)
25 August 1990 Netherlands beat Tokyo (score not recorded)
27 August 1990 Wellington 10, Netherlands 4
1 September 1990 Auckland 25, Netherlands 0

United States:

27 August 1990 Canterbury 0, USA 12
28 August 1990 Auckland 0, USA 6

Soviet Union:

19 August 1990 Canterbury "A" 20, USSR 0
20 August 1990 Paremata-Plimmerton 0, USSR 0
26 August 1990 Belfast 16, USSR 14
27 August 1990 Auckland 25, USSR 0

References

^ New Zealand Press Guide for the 2010 World Cup

Official unpublished scoresheets held in the collections of the Rugby Museum of New Zealand

[1] New Zealand Press Guide for the 2010 World Cup

[1]