New Zealand Rugby had intended for the annual National Provincial Championship to take place during the World Cup, and insisted on being able to honour its agreement with local sponsors, but this was not acceptable to the IRB.

The Adelaide Oval underwent a AU$20 million redevelopment for the 2003 Rugby World Cup, financed entirely by the South Australian Cricket Association, with two new grandstands built adjacent to the Victor Richardson Gates.

Source:[7] Australia Ireland Argentina Namibia Romania France United States Japan Fiji Scotland South Africa England Samoa Georgia Uruguay New Zealand Wales Italy Canada Tonga Following criticism of the complex format used in the 1999 Rugby World Cup a new simpler format was introduced and the twenty teams were divided into four pools of five nations, with the top two in each pool moving on to the knock-out quarter-final stage.

The South Pacific island countries of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa were reported as being handicapped by several of their foreign-based key players being warned by their clubs that their contracts would not be renewed if they played in the competition.

Australia, however, only beat Ireland by one point to top their pool, while Wales pushed the All Blacks to the wire in arguably the most entertaining game of the entire tournament; adopting a hyper-attacking style of play, they led 37–33 with just 20 minutes left, but New Zealand eventually proved too much in the 12-try thriller.

The quarter-final stage produced the widely predicted set of semi-finalists, although England again made heavy weather of defeating a resurgent Wales.

England were widely rated the world's best team, but they struggled, at least in the first half, against a Welsh side full of belief after their game against New Zealand.

France destroyed an Irish side who had gone into the match hopeful of a win, scoring 31 early points to put the game out of reach.

The first semi-final produced the first significant upset of the tournament, when Australia defeated the fancied New Zealand to become the first defending champions to reach the following championship final.

The match was decided by a Stirling Mortlock interception try, after a loose pass from highly rated All Blacks fly-half Carlos Spencer, and the excellent kicking of inside-centre Elton Flatley.

French ill-discipline also cost them dear, with winger Christophe Dominici and flanker Serge Betsen both receiving yellow-cards for foul play: the former for a cynical trip on Jason Robinson, the latter for a late tackle on Wilkinson.

Lote Tuqiri beat England's right wing, Jason Robinson, to a high cross-field kick and went over for the first try, but Elton Flatley was not able to add the conversion.

The rest of the half was a tight affair, with England edging in front from applying pressure and Jonny Wilkinson's boot put them up to a 9–5 lead after Australian indiscipline gave away several penalties, but were unable to capitalise on their territory.

Lawrence Dallaglio made a break and popped the ball inside to Jonny Wilkinson, who drew the defence before putting Robinson away in the corner for a try.

[11] The offhand manner in which he presented the Webb Ellis Cup to the England captain was seen by many as a graceless piece of bad sportsmanship not befitting such a climactic sporting spectacle.

Three days after the final, the World Cup winning England team landed at Heathrow Airport in the early hours of the morning, emerging from their plane to a huge reception, despite the time.