Latest World Rankings: England Fall, Wales Rise
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An eventful weekend of rugby in the Six Nations and Rugby Europe Championship led to a couple of positional changes in the World Rugby Men’s Rankings.
England’s first defeat to Scotland at Twickenham since 1983 has cost them second place with the All Blacks now the closest team to the World Champion Springboks. Eddie Jones’ side dropped two rating points after what was also their loss they and are now a fraction under one-and-a-half points behind the All Blacks in third.
The historic victory boosted Scotland’s points tally to 82.82, but that wasn’t quite enough for them to improve on their position of seventh prior to kick-off. They are, however, now only a quarter of a point adrift of Australia in sixth, and will leapfrog the Wallabies if they beat Wales at Murrayfield this coming weekend.
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The 1.23 rating points claimed by Wales for their 21-16 victory over 14-man Ireland sees them move above Argentina in the rankings and into eighth place. Ireland remain in fifth place despite the setback, immediately below France, who were never in line to pick up any additional points for their clash with Italy due to the large points differential between them. With no rating points lost, Italy remain in 14th place in the rankings.
Despite Georgia's victory 16-7 over rivals Russia in the Rugby Europe Championship, there is no effect on the rankings for either side. In the other fixture, Spain improved their rating by two-tenths of a point by beating Portugal 25-11 with both sides retain their current standings in 17th and 20th respectively.
