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Angus Bell of the Wallabies (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
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.
Current World Rugby Rankings
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.
(Photo by Renee McKay/Getty Images)
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The rankings explained
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.
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The one exception to this is Rugby World Cup games, for which the points exchange is doubled.
