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The World Rugby rankings determine which international side is considered the world’s best.
The World Cup has seen seismic change in the rankings throughout the prestige tournament.
Heading in as the top seed, Ireland slipped from 1 to 3 with their quarter-final loss to New Zealand, but then jumped to second with the All Blacks’ loss in the final to the Springboks, who have retaken top spot.
Australia, meanwhile, remain in ninth, having briefly dropped to 10th after a disastrous campaign.
Position | Team | Points |
---|---|---|
1 | South Africa | 94.54 |
2 | Ireland | 90.57 |
3 | New Zealand | 89.80 |
4 | France | 87.81 |
5 | England | 85.46 |
6 | Scotland | 83.43 |
7 | Argentina | 80.68 |
8 | Wales | 80.64 |
9 | Australia | 77.48 |
10 | Fiji | 76.38 |
11 | Italy | 75.93 |
12 | Japan | 74.27 |
13 | Portugal | 72.78 |
14 | Georgia | 72.68 |
15 | Samoa | 72.23 |
16 | Tonga | 71.57 |
17 | Uruguay | 67.39 |
18 | USA | 66.22 |
19 | Spain | 64.05 |
20 | Romania | 63.28 |
To see the complete rankings for all 105 international rugby sides, head over to World Rugby’s website.
The World Rugby Rankings operate using a points exchange system, where two teams will exchange points following a game against each other. That is, the losing team’s points total will be reduced by the same amount that the winning side’s is increased by.
Each side has a points rating almost always ranging from 0-100, with the no.1 side in the world often ranked between 90-100.
A range of factors impact the number of points exchanged following each match, including each side’s ranking going into the match, the location of the game – to take into account home ground advantage – and the margin of the result.
Home ground advantage to is taken into account by ‘handicapping’ the home side – their ranking is given three additional points for the purpose of comparing the relative strength of the two sides.
If the margin of victory exceeds 15 points, then the points exchanged between the side is multiplied by 1.5.
All international matches are given the same weighting as each other for ranking purposes – so a Bledisloe Cup game is given no more weighting than a match between Georgia and Italy, for example – so as to not disadvantage those sides who don’t have access to rugby’s biggest tournaments.
The one exception to this is Rugby World Cup games, for which the points exchange is doubled.