the value of Sevens to further this end, and their chairman, Vernon Pugh, enthusiastically agreed. Thus, the IRB organised the first officially sanctioned Rugby World Cup Sevens to be held at Murrayfield in April 1993. The ultimate prize of the competition was to be called the Melrose Cup, named after the small Scottish town of Melrose where the Sevens format had been born in 1883. A butchers apprentice and Melrose 20-a-side quarterback, Ned Haig, suggested having a rugby tournament as part of a sports day to raise funds at the end of the rugby season and his boss David Sanderson proposed playing in a tournament that required reduced numbers of players in each team. On 28 April 1883, the Melrose seven-a-side tournament began, with the time of each match limited to 15 minutes. The first World Cup was held 12 days shy of the 110th anniversary of that first tournament. Squads Qualification Of the twenty-four nations involved, nineteen were invited and five had to go through pre-tournament qualification. Four of the qualification places were won by Namibia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Spain who booked their places by reaching the semi-finals of one qualifying event in Sicily. Latvia won their place by beating Russia in the final of a mini-tournament staged in Moscow to decide who would replace the USSR, which had broken up since its invite to the world cup. The invited participants were Argentina, Australia, Canada, England, Fiji, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Scotland, Tonga, South Africa, South Korea, USA, Wales and Western Samoa. Format The 24 nations were drawn into four pools of six teams with the top two progressing to the Melrose Cup, the third to the Plate and the fourth-placed teams contesting the Bowl competition. The groups were arranged thus: Summary First round As expected, the leading nations all made it through. However, only South Africa, New Zealand and Western Samoa could boast unbeaten records at this stage. Fiji, Australia, Tonga, Ireland and England all lost one match in their respective pools. In Pool A Wales, lost to South Africa but distinguished themselves against the powerhouse of sevens rugby, Fiji, coming back from 21–0 down to lose narrowly 21–17. South Africa managed to overcome Fiji in their pool match. In Pool B Ireland had an excellent first round, beating United States 38–0. They lost to New Zealand, who won the group, but finished