2010 Women's Rugby World Cup

• England and France qualified directly as runner-up and third place in the WRWC 2006
• Wales and Ireland qualified for the Tournament as second and third in the 2009 RBS 6 Nations
• Scotland and Sweden, qualify as top two teams from the 2009 FIRA-AER Women's European Trophy, held in Sweden from 17 to 23 May 2009. This competition was made up of the 5th and 6th placed six nations teams (Scotland and Italy) as well as Spain, Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Germany and Belgium

• USA and Canada qualified directly

• South Africa qualified directly

• Kazakhstan won the ARFU Women's XV Tournament, defeating Japan in the final, to qualify as the Asia representative

• New Zealand qualified directly as winner of the WRWC 2006
• Australia beat Samoa in a one off match to determine the second FORU representative at the WRWC 2010. A four team tournament had been planned with Fiji as the proposed host, but Fiji declined invitations to host or enter the tournament, citing the size of the entry fee (A$36,000),[7] though the women's association president, Adi Vela Naucukidi, complained that the Fiji RFU had taken the decision without consulting them, or giving them an opportunity to raise the money. Shortly afterwards Papua New Guinea also withdrew for financial reasons

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	8 August 2009	Samoa	0–87	Australia	Samoa	[14/27/1]

Women's Rugby World Cup – Guildford 2010

Defending champions New Zealand, hosts and 2006 runners-up England and 2006 bronze winners France all ranked top seeds in their pool.[13] Teams played each other in each pool on a round robin basis, while match points were awarded according to the international standards: 4 points for a win, 2 points for a draw, 1 point for scoring 4 or more tries or for losing by 7 or less than 7 points.
At the end of the pool stage, the teams in a pool were ranked according to their cumulative match points. If two or more teams had been level, the following criteria would have been used in this order until one of the teams could be determined as the higher ranked:

• the winner of the match between the two tied teams;
• the team with the best points difference;
• the team with the best tries difference;
• the team with more scored points;
• the team with more scored tries;
• a toss of coin.[14]

The teams were seeded based on the position in which they finished in their respective pools and the points scored during the pool stage. The three pool winners and the best runner-up went through to the semi-finals. The other two runners-up and the best two 3rd-place finishers went into a sort of a competition for 5th place, whilst the bottom three teams competed for 9th place.
The ranking finals were set as it follows:

• 1st seed vs 4th seed;
• 2nd seed vs 3rd seed;
• 5th seed vs 8th seed;
• 6th Seed vs 7th seed;
• 9th seed vs 12th seed;
• 10th seed vs 11th seed.[14]

If teams had been tied at full-time, the winner would have been determined through a 10-minutes extra time (the first team to score any points would have been declared the winner) or eventually a kicking competition (five players from each team would have kicked from three different points on the 22-metre line).[14]