Scotland has participated in every Rugby World Cup since the first in 1987. Their best result is finishing 4th in 1991, and they have reached the quarter-finals six times.

Year Host Result
1987 New Zealand & Australia Quarter-finals
1991 Five Nations Fourth place
1995 South Africa Quarter-finals
1999 Wales Quarter-finals
2003 Australia Quarter-finals
2007 France Quarter-finals
2011 New Zealand Pool stage
2015 England Quarter-finals
2019 Japan Pool stage
2023 France Pool stage

1991

Scotland's best tournament came in 1991, when the World Cup was shared around the Five Nations and Scotland played their matches at Murrayfield. They won their pool, beat Western Samoa in the quarter-final, and then lost the semi-final to England 9–6 in Edinburgh. New Zealand beat them 13–6 in the third-place play-off.

The Quarter-final Habit

Scotland went out at the quarter-final stage at five of the first seven tournaments, three times to New Zealand – 30–3 in 1987, 48–30 in 1995 and 30–18 in 1999 – then to Australia in 2003 and Argentina in 2007. The run of knockout appearances ended in 2011, when they failed to get out of their pool for the first time.

They were back in the quarter-finals in 2015, but have not been beyond the pool stage since. In 2019 in Japan, wins over Samoa and Russia were not enough after defeats to Ireland and the hosts, who beat them 28–21 in Yokohama in the decisive match. In 2023 Scotland drew one of the hardest pools in World Cup history, with the eventual champions South Africa and a top-ranked Ireland side. They beat Tonga and Romania but lost 18–3 to South Africa and 36–14 to Ireland, and went home early again.

2027

Scotland qualified automatically for the 2027 tournament in Australia by finishing in the top three of their 2023 pool. That World Cup expands to 24 teams in six pools of four, with a new round of 16, and runs from 1 October to 13 November 2027. Scotland have been drawn in Pool D, with Ireland, Uruguay and Portugal – a third successive World Cup in which they face the Irish in the pool stage.

Trivia

  • In 2015, Scotland came tantalizingly close to beating the Australian wallabies in the quarter-finals, the Australians scoring off a controversial penalty in the last minute to secure a 35-34 win, which some media dubbed possibly the greatest World Cup match ever. World Rugby later accepted that referee Craig Joubert had got the decision wrong: he penalised Jon Welsh for offside, but an Australian player had touched the ball, which should have put Welsh onside, and the correct call was a scrum to Australia.
  • New Zealand have knocked Scotland out of more World Cups than any other side, beating them in the quarter-finals of 1987, 1995 and 1999 as well as the 1991 third-place play-off.
  • Scotland's 2023 pool included South Africa, who went on to win the tournament, and Ireland, who were ranked number one in the world going into it. Only two of the four could reach the quarter-finals.