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The World Rugby rankings determine which international side is considered the world’s best.
The Wallabies rose to third on the table following twin upset victories over reigning World Cup winners the Springboks in the 2021 Rugby Championship, but three losses in a row to Scotland, England and Wales on the 2021 Spring Tour saw them slide back to sixth.
Meanwhile, the Boks are playing pass-the-parcel with the All Blacks for the number one ranking, going back past the New Zealanders thanks to their win over Scotland, and the All Blacks’ shock losses to Ireland and France in late 2021.
France jumped past New Zealand into second after an impressive Six Nations series.
Current World Rugby Rankings
Position
Team
Points
1
South Africa
90.61
2
France
88.88
3
New Zealand
88.75
4
Ireland
88.22
5
England
84.50
6
Wallabies
83.92
7
Scotland
81.80
8
Argentina
80.58
9
Wales
79.28
10
Japan
78.26
11
Fiji
76.62
12
Samoa
73.59
13
Georgia
73.47
14
Italy
72.33
15
Spain
68.57
16
Tonga
67.72
17
Romania
66.95
18
USA
66.54
19
Uruguay
66.40
20
Portugal
65.72
To see the complete rankings for all 105 international rugby sides, head over to World Rugby’s website.
(Photo by Renee McKay/Getty Images)
The rankings explained
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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.
