As the Rugby World Cup approaches, the excitement amongst rugby fans all over Australia is at its peak. While people from all over the world are already making plans to visit New Zealand to witness the 7th Rugby World Cup competition, the entire continent of Australasia is excited to welcome them to one of the biggest sporting events ever played in the continent. Over 95,000 people are expected to travel for the Rugby World Cup 2011, not only boosting the popularity of rugby but also attracting a great amount of tourists.

Poll results show that rugby is the third most popular sport in Australia now, with its history dating back to the 19th century. Whilst there are reports of rugby games being played during the 1820s, the first rugby club was set up at Sydney University in 1864; the Southern Rugby Union came into being in 1874. This was the foundation of various unions which had been formed around Australia.

The first test series was played against a visiting team from the British Isles with representatives of various unions representing an Australian team; this was followed by matches against New Zealand until in 1908 the first Australian representative team went on a 9 month long international tour. Since then, we have seen the Australian National team, also known as the Wallabies, representing the country in every major rugby event.

The biggest international rugby event is the World Cup which has been played every four years from 1987 onwards. The inaugural Rugby World cup was jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

The Wallabies are among the top teams in all of rugby and have won the World Cup on two occasions, beating England in the finals in 1991 and France in 1999. The only other team to have won the World Cup title twice is South Africa, winning the title in 1995 and 2007. New Zealand was the winner of the inaugural competition in 1987, while England defeated Australia in 2003 to grab their only Rugby World Cup title.

This year the top teams will be working really hard to get their hands on the trophy, and experts have varied opinions as to who will win. However, to get the general Australian public opinion, reward surveys were used to determine who Australians think will win the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

Of 1,743 Australian respondents, over one-third said they will be watching the matches either on TV or on line. Among them, 40 per cent said they will be rooting for Australia. New Zealand has the support of 34 per cent of respondents (21 per cent male and 13 per cent female). Of the remaining 26 per cent, 5 per cent are supporting England, 4 per cent are in favour of 2007 winners South Africa; while Argentina, France, Italy and the USA get between 3 per cent and 1 per cent of the vote. 7 per cent of those surveyed said they did not know which team would win the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

Regina Foster writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.