2009 Rugby World Cup Sevens

2009 Rugby World Cup Sevens

كأس العالم للرجبي 2009 السبعات
Tournament details
Host nation	United Arab Emirates
Dates	March 5 – March 7
No. of nations	24 (men) 16 (women)
Final positions
Champions	Wales (men)  Australia (women)
Runner-up	Argentina (men)  New Zealand (women)
Tournament statistics
Attendance	78,000[1]
← 2005 2013 →

The 2009 Rugby sevens World Cup was the fifth edition of the Rugby World Cup Sevens. The International Rugby Board (IRB) selected Dubai in the United Arab Emirates as the host venue for the tournament ahead of bids from four other countries.^[2] The format included nine direct qualifiers and a further fifteen qualifiers from all six regions defined by the IRB. A women's version of the world cup was also held alongside the men's tournament for the first time and featured sixteen teams.^[3] The men's cup was won by Wales, with the women's cup going to Australia.

The men's teams of Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, who entered the semi-finals in the two previous editions, failed to do so in 2009: the former were defeated by quarter-finals Kenya and Wales respectively, whereas Australia lost two of the three matches in the pool stage and did not advance to quarter-finals.

Wales, which had never reached quarter-finals in the previous editions of the World Cup, beat Samoa in semi-finals and Argentina in the final to win the tournament. Kenya had never reached the Cup or Plate stages before, but shared 3rd place in 2009.