The tournament took place three rather than four years after the previous Women's Rugby World Cup because World Rugby wanted to move away from clashing with other events.[3] The event returned to a four-year cycle after 2017.[4]
The 2017 tournament set attendance records for a Women's World Cup. The tournament drew 45,412 fans over 30 matches. The final was played in front of a crowd of 17,115, and the pool matches sold out.[citation needed]
This was the last edition of the tournament under the "Women's Rugby World Cup" name. On 21 August 2019, World Rugby announced that all future World Cups, whether for men or women, would be officially titled as the "Rugby World Cup", distinguished only by year and not by gender. As such, the 2021 edition in New Zealand bore the title of "Rugby World Cup 2021".[5]
Bidding process
On 2 March 2015, it was announced that the Irish Rugby Football Union had submitted a bid to host to Women's Rugby World Cup in August 2017.[6] The Irish bid was the only one made to host the event. On 13 May 2015 it was announced that Ireland would host the event in Dublin and Belfast.[7]
On 4 June 2015 it was announced that Garrett Tubridy had been appointed tournament director for the event.[8]
Ireland, the host nation, had already qualified automatically by finishing in the top seven teams at the 2014 tournament before being announced as hosts. A further six teams (England, Canada, France, New Zealand, the United States and Australia) qualified automatically as top seven finishers at the 2014 tournament.[9] Italy and Wales qualified as the top two teams across the 2015 and 2016 Women's Six Nations excluding England, France, and Ireland. The remaining three qualifiers (Hong Kong, Spain and Japan) were determined by the end of 2016.
The pool draw took place on 9 November 2016 at Belfast.[12]
Each pool was a single round-robin of six games, in which each team played one match against each of the other teams in the same pool. Teams were awarded four points for a win, two points for a draw, one point for a loss by one to seven points, and none for a defeat by more than seven points. A team scoring four or more tries in one match scored a bonus point.
The tournament comprised 12 teams in three pools of four with the pool winners plus the best runner-up progressing to the semi-finals.[13]
At the completion of the pool stage, teams were ranked first according to their position within their pool (positions 1 to 3 were the pool winners, positions 4 to 6 were the pool runners up, etc.) and then by competition points. The top four teams progressed to the tournament semi-finals, teams ranked 5–8 progressed to the 5th to 8th play-offs, and the teams ranked 9–12 progressed to the 9th to 12th play-offs.[33]
If teams were tied on pool points they were ranked by rules applied in the following order –
1. The team that won the match between the two teams was ranked first (does not apply to teams in different pools)
2. If the teams were still level, the difference between points scored and points conceded was used to rank the teams
3. Difference between tries scored and tries conceded was used to rank the teams
4. Most points scored
5. Most tries scored
6. Coin toss
