World Rugby Rankings

First topic message reminder :

Current World Rankings

IRB Rankings at
http://www.worldrugby.org/rankings#mru

Fixtures according to http://www.espn.co.uk/rugby/fixtures/_/league/180659/

Best odds for each result category from a range of bookies as at http://www.oddschecker.com/rugby-union/six-nations

Code:



Saturday, March 18

Scotland v Italy 12:30 PM -- BT Murrayfield, Edinburgh

sco (on 82.18 points) at home -vs- ita (on 71.17 points)

If sco win by 1-15 points 0.000 82.18 71.17 No
If sco win by more than 15 0.000 82.18 71.17 No
If result is a draw 1.000 81.18 72.17 No
If ita win by 1-15 points 2.000 80.18 73.17 No
If ita win by more than 15 3.000 79.18 74.17 No

Scotland (1/16)
Draw (66/1)
Italy (15/1)

France v Wales 2:45 PM -- Stade de France, Saint-Denis

fra (on 81.21 points) at home -vs- wal (on 82.16 points)

If fra win by 1-15 points 0.795 82.00 81.36 Yes
If fra win by more than 15 1.193 82.40 80.97 Yes
If result is a draw 0.205 81.00 82.36 No
If wal win by 1-15 points 1.205 80.00 83.36 No
If wal win by more than 15 1.807 79.40 83.97 No

France (8/13)
14:45TV
 

France (8/13)
Draw (25/1)
Wales (13/8)

Ireland v England 5:00 PM -- Aviva Stadium, Dublin

ire (on 83.18 points) at home -vs- eng (on 91.02 points)

If ire win by 1-15 points 1.484 84.66 89.54 No
If ire win by more than 15 2.226 85.41 88.79 No
If result is a draw 0.484 83.66 90.54 No
If eng win by 1-15 points 0.516 82.66 91.54 No
If eng win by more than 15 0.774 82.41 91.79 No

Ireland (6/4)
Draw (25/1)
England (9/13)



Original thread:
https://www.606v2.com/t12724p950-irb-world-rankings-part-1


Sources:
Fixtures : http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/fixtures/4776295.stm
IRB Rankings : http://www.espn.co.uk/scrum/rugby/match/fixtures/international.html
Rankings explanation : http://www.irb.com/rankings/explain/index.html
Rankings archive : http://www.irb.com/rankings/archive/index.html
Fixtures : http://www.espnscrum.com/scrum/rugby/current/match/scores/recent.html

Online calculator (Courtesy of Robbo277 (thanks)) : http://www.lassen.co.nz/pagmisc.php#hrh

Ok - France win 22-14. Samoa and Argentina tied on points, it goes to third and fourth decimal points....who holds the advantage here?

EDIT: @irbmedia say Samoa provisionally 8th, ahead of Argentina. So.....it looks Samoa are in pot 2!

Samoa's loss to France sees them lose some ranking points but they're still in the top 8 - just.

Themselves and Argentina are on 78.71, however, the IRB ranking calculations can go further to three or four decimal places to separate the sides. Samoa come out on top in 7th spot.

Wales v NZ - non-event.

Romania 3-34 USA

Georgia 19-24 Fiji

So - NZ, SA, Aus, Fra are confirmed as Seed One teams.
England and Ireland are confirmed as Seed Two teams.
The result of the Wales v Australia game will settle the remaining spots in the second and third tiers of seedings. If Wales win, themselves and Samoa complete the Second Tier. If Wales lose, Samoa and Argentina go through, and Wales drop into third tier along with Italy, Tonga and Scotland.

Rankings as they stand:

1(1) NEW ZEALAND 92.91
2(2) SOUTH AFRICA 86.94
3(3) AUSTRALIA 86.31
4(4) FRANCE 85.07
5(5) ENGLAND 81.07
6(7) IRELAND 80.22
7(8) WALES 78.95
8(9) SAMOA 78.71+
9(6) ARGENTINA 78.71-
10(11) ITALY 76.24
11(12) TONGA 76.10
12(10) SCOTLAND 75.83
13(13) FIJI 71.63
14(14) CANADA 71.39
15(16) JAPAN 68.89
16(15) USA 68.56
17(17) GEORGIA 66.92
18(18) ROMANIA 62.17
19(20) SPAIN 61.63
20(19) RUSSIA 61.51

So if Wales hump Aus and Eng hump NZ thats still not enough to push them out the top 4?

Scotland..12th...jesus. Is that their lowest ever ranking?

Tonga have really come from nowhere as Fijis replacements as the other good Islands team over the last couple of years

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:So if Wales hump Aus and Eng hump NZ thats still not enough to push them out the top 4?

Correct, in the unlikely impossible event that Eng and Wales both win by 15+ points, Aus would still rank higher than England - just.

Dave. wrote:Ok - France win 22-14. Samoa and Argentina tied on points, it goes to third and fourth decimal points....who holds the advantage here?

EDIT: @irbmedia say Samoa provisionally 8th, ahead of Argentina. So.....it looks Samoa are in pot 2!

Samoa in 8th by .0003825 of a ranking point!!!

Provisional latest IRB World Rankings

(Official rankings will be published at 12 midday UK time on Monday 26 November, on irb.com)

1 NEW ZEALAND - 92.91
2 SOUTH AFRICA - 86.94
3 AUSTRALIA - 86.31
4 FRANCE - 85.07
5 ENGLAND - 81.07
6 IRELAND - 80.22
7 WALES - 78.95
8 SAMOA - 78.71 (78.709236088306938 to 15 decimal places)
9 ARGENTINA - 78.71 (78.708853582562098 to 15 decimal places)
10 ITALY - 76.24
11 TONGA - 76.10
12 SCOTLAND - 75.83

Am I right in thinking that should Australia win next weekend Wales will drop to 9th with Samoa and Argentina rising to 7th and 8th respectively?

Correct. With a +15 Win to OZ they'd go to 78.10
Any loss would take them down to 78.39

Hopefully these are right for next weeks games:

England win by 1-15 points: 1.884 82.95 91.03 No
England win by more than 15: 2.826 83.9 90.08 No
If result is a draw: 0.884 81.95 92.03 No
NZ win by 1-15 points: 0.116 80.95 93.03 No
NZ win by more than 15: 0.174 80.9 93.08 No

Wales win by 1-15 points 1.436 80.39 84.87 No
Wales win by more than 15 2.154 81.1 84.16 No
If result is a draw 0.436 79.39 85.87 No
Australia win by 1-15 points 0.564 78.39 86.87 No
Australia win by more than 15 0.846 78.1 87.16 No


So the way I read it is:

NZ will stay no1 win or lose.

Australia are currently ranked no 3. Australia will overtake South Africa if they beat Wales. A big loss to Wales and they will fall below France.

England are currently ranked no 5. they can't overtake France or Australia, and can't fall below Ireland. However the could be overtaken by Wales.

Wales are currently ranked no 7. They would fall below Samoa and Argentina if they lose to Australia. They could overtake Ireland and England. If They beat Australia they will overtake Ireland. If they have a big win over Australia and England Lose to NZ The would overtake England as well.

In short

The seedings are sorted except for Wales and Argentina in either second or third.

That's it in a nutshell. Although I suspect that should wales overtake Ireland and/or England some posters might feel differently....

Can we please round up every wales supported who bleated about how unfair the ranking system is and get them to write a letter of thanks to the IRB for making it possible for them to get humped by 22 points at home, and still climb above the team that p1ssed on them a couple of weeks previously

While we're at it... can England avoid the inevitable trifecta of SH beatings? Probably not.

Morning LB, I see you cricket team is poised to take over the number one ranking.

Tonight?.... I mean tomorrow? I thought we might have to wait a little while.

When India or England win it's done overnight.
The tyranny of distance means we sometimes have to wait weeks or even months....

Anyway, you know my views on ICC Rankings. Same as yours.

Well, I am still proud of your boys, Clarke is in the form of his life and Hussey is just awesome this late in his career.

Sadly for us, Amla and Kallis aren't having a good time, and we need those two to really put the foot in.

Biltong wrote:Well, I am still proud of your boys, Clarke is in the form of his life and Hussey is just awesome this late in his career.

Sadly for us, Amla and Kallis aren't having a good time, and we need those two to really put the foot in.

Would you ever stop it with this stuff lads?

If it's not long posts in Affikaans on Welsh threads it's finding that Australia are to head the World rankings after just scraping past Italy with players I've never heard of!

MrsP wrote:

Biltong wrote:Well, I am still proud of your boys, Clarke is in the form of his life and Hussey is just awesome this late in his career.

Sadly for us, Amla and Kallis aren't having a good time, and we need those two to really put the foot in.

Would you ever stop it with this stuff lads?

If it's not long posts in Affikaans on Welsh threads it's finding that Australia are to head the World rankings after just scraping past Italy with players I've never heard of!

Cricket MrsP.

blackcanelion wrote:That's it in a nutshell. Although I suspect that should wales overtake Ireland and/or England some posters might feel differently....

And possibly some Australian ones too. The ockers are very proud of their very own Blyddislow Cup victories over the Welsh - in the last 12 months, it's 5 on the bounce and counting.....

I see your point, Pot.

Never thought of it like that.

Seems to me that Wales have to lose to Australia - my forecast is a draw.
It would keep them in the 2nd tier.

New official rankings announced
http://www.irb.com/rankings/full.html

Heartbreaker for the Welsh. Last minute try for Australia sends them to Pot 3. As an Irish fan, rather them than Argentina!

Anyone know what the rankings will be for England now?

5th I think, they couldn't make the top 4.

Think it goes - England, Ireland, Samoa, Argentina.

Just off the IRB site:

Provisional latest IRB World Rankings

(Official rankings will be published at 12:00 UK time on Monday 3 December, on irb.com)

1 NEW ZEALAND - 90.08
2 SOUTH AFRICA - 86.94
3 AUSTRALIA - 86.87
4 FRANCE - 85.07
5 ENGLAND - 83.90
6 IRELAND - 80.22
7 SAMOA - 78.71
8 ARGENTINA - 78.71
9 WALES - 78.39
10 ITALY - 76.24
11 TONGA - 76.10
12 SCOTLAND - 75.83

Just clinging onto the 90s!

The RWC pools will probably be interesting now and we should have a tough pool which I'm fine with. England in our pool would be ideal!

Welcome to the 3rd tier Wales, nice of you to join us Scots down here

Yikes this says a lot about Argentina and Samoa. Rugby is developing. Tonga right up there too! The RWC groups are now going to be really tough I think.

Says a lot also about how good/bad the 6Nations is as a competition

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:Yikes this says a lot about Argentina and Samoa. Rugby is developing. Tonga right up there too! The RWC groups are now going to be really tough I think.

Says a lot also about how good/bad the 6Nations is as a competition

Says a lot about the quad nations....Argentina were ranked 3rd this time 4 years agoand have crashed badly since the 07 world cup, aside from the Wales game they've really struggles against the 6ns teams despite a gutsy showing in the 4s.
Samoa and Tonga are big climbers....in Samoa case only really back to where they used to be. This is mirrored by Fiji collapsing utterly, they were the highest ranked island team 4 years ago.
We keep hearing how the us, Georgia Japan and Russia will emerge as powers....they are all still no marks. I don't really see much of a shift in the balance of power having occurred.

What I like about the WRs is the innocent knockabout of the bragging rights when for 3/4 years they don't matter.

Although that is a bit like telling a kid that non public-exam years aren't important.

Does anyone know if anyone does the slam can they either get second or first in the IRB. England and France are propably the only one. France would get more points as they would beat England and Ireland away.

Brendan wrote:Does anyone know if anyone does the slam can they either get second or first in the IRB. England and France are propably the only one. France would get more points as they would beat England and Ireland away.

Id assume its possible for France ast they could get decent points for beating England by a big margin at Twickers ( if Englands rating hasnt slipped due to losses by then...) but in general its pretty unlikely.
Certainly 1st isnt possible. The rating difference is so big between France and half the 6 nations teams theyd barely gain anything even for big wins.

Youll only get in the top 2/3 by beating top teams...ask the Welsh

If wales lose to Scotland or Italy they will be in big trouble points wise.

As you say france as as close to Ireland as they are to NZ. But if Ireland were to beat Wales then they could give some of those to the French to help them.

yeah its extremely difficult to work out all the exact implications because the points exchanges are highly dependant on other results and the order of games...quick scribblings if results went Frances way (so that they played teams when their ratings were maximised) and they won all their games by 15+ they could reach a rating of just over 88 which would leave them in second place....but thats absurdly unlikely to happen.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:Yikes this says a lot about Argentina and Samoa. Rugby is developing. Tonga right up there too! The RWC groups are now going to be really tough I think.

Says a lot also about how good/bad the 6Nations is as a competition

Says a lot about the quad nations....Argentina were ranked 3rd this time 4 years agoand have crashed badly since the 07 world cup, aside from the Wales game they've really struggles against the 6ns teams despite a gutsy showing in the 4s.
Samoa and Tonga are big climbers....in Samoa case only really back to where they used to be. This is mirrored by Fiji collapsing utterly, they were the highest ranked island team 4 years ago.
We keep hearing how the us, Georgia Japan and Russia will emerge as powers....they are all still no marks. I don't really see much of a shift in the balance of power having occurred.

No. It says Argentina finished 3rd in 2007, which was as much about them maximising their potential in the tournament, followed by games, more often than not away, when they seldom get to prepare and/or field their top sides.

They have to cap more players than other major nations which says it all. Look at this year:
1) The side that beat Italy and drew a series with France was a B side. Virtually no one made the starting 15 in the rugby championship. This was primarily due players returning from Europe needing a break.
2) the rugby championship side were as strong as they could be.
3) the teams playing in Europe was significantly understrength. They usually started with 8-10 1st choice players. From memory one of the reasons was club commitments.

Georgia, Canada, etc need access to players and games against sides like Scotland and Italy to improve and make the next step up.

So no matter what happens Scotland can't fall any lower. As long as france avoid defeat they will be better then England regardless of their resut. If wales lose they fall lower on points but not place unless the other two win.

blackcanelion wrote:

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:Yikes this says a lot about Argentina and Samoa. Rugby is developing. Tonga right up there too! The RWC groups are now going to be really tough I think.

Says a lot also about how good/bad the 6Nations is as a competition

Says a lot about the quad nations....Argentina were ranked 3rd this time 4 years agoand have crashed badly since the 07 world cup, aside from the Wales game they've really struggles against the 6ns teams despite a gutsy showing in the 4s.
Samoa and Tonga are big climbers....in Samoa case only really back to where they used to be. This is mirrored by Fiji collapsing utterly, they were the highest ranked island team 4 years ago.
We keep hearing how the us, Georgia Japan and Russia will emerge as powers....they are all still no marks. I don't really see much of a shift in the balance of power having occurred.

No. It says Argentina finished 3rd in 2007, which was as much about them maximising their potential in the tournament, followed by games, more often than not away, when they seldom get to prepare and/or field their top sides.

They have to cap more players than other major nations which says it all. Look at this year:
1) The side that beat Italy and drew a series with France was a B side. Virtually no one made the starting 15 in the rugby championship. This was primarily due players returning from Europe needing a break.
2) the rugby championship side were as strong as they could be.
3) the teams playing in Europe was significantly understrength. They usually started with 8-10 1st choice players. From memory one of the reasons was club commitments.

Georgia, Canada, etc need access to players and games against sides like Scotland and Italy to improve and make the next step up.

Whereas the England side that toured Argentina in the last Lions summer, and the one that will tour this Lions summer, will of course be a full strength A side? How does the France side they bit match up to the one that contested the world cup final (Ill give you a clue : there was only 4 starters in common) or the one that beat Australia a few weeks later (6 started both)?
FYI the first 3 AIs are played during the IRB release window (and Argentina are never a "4th"), the only players not available are those that choose to make themselves so as is the case for the European sides they play with players based in France, Japan or the SH. Wales have to make do in the 4th AI without any of their France or England based players.
Georgia play Scotland not very long ago with full access to all their players, they lost....just like they have every time theyve ever played anyone in the top 10.They even lost to Italy A a few years ago. yes they wont move up the rankings without beating those sides, but it takes more than just playing them every year to do that ( see Englands current ranking vs NZ after their once a decade win!) Argentina played in that group too, and true to the current rankings squeaked past Scotland and lost narrowly to England...then got easily brushed aside in the quarter finals. Both the rankings and their full strength performance against full strength opposition tally.


Argentinas ranking has dropped for a reason : They just arent as good and havent been winning as as many games as a result especially against the 6 Nations teams they were previously ranked above.

How this equates to a shift in the balance of power I have no idea. We have had "non core" sides picking up wins against 6 nations sides for decades, what we havent got at the moment is any side outside the obvious 5 capable really pushing for a top 3 place, we did have that 5 years ago (Argentina in 3rd). Tonga have improved yes, but Fiji have collapsed. Samoa anymore powerful on a global scale than when they got into a world cup last 8? If theres been a shift its that Aus slipped back, allowing the likes of Scotland to pick up wins against them. Wales even came close to getting a result in Aus this summer.

Theres blips all over and freak results we can point to. But the general pattern is reflected in the rankings. the Sanzars are still on top, the better six nations sides, then a mix of argentina , weaker 6 nations sides, and the strongest Pisland team of the moment followed by the usual bunch of romantic junk who get the odd moral boosting win. After that its virtually semi pro territory with the odd star player scattered in to flatter the quality of the makeweights.
This really isnt any different to the situation 10 or 20 years ago is it?

Peter I do think that Japan has a solid shot at moving up the ranks,

1. they have a professional league with biog names for the local players to play against.
2. Apart from the one player in NZ they have total control over their players
3. They have money to do whatever they want to improve structure.
4. They can blood new players in the Asia Cup while getting good game time against the PI nations.
5. They can pay the fees required to get the big teams over to play aginst.

For these reason I think that they will contiune to rise. They beat Georgia in the AIs. With the USA and Canada being added to the Pacific Cup they will be playing all the teams apart from Georgia every year and so will be able to improve each year.

All of the current second tier teams ie the new Pacific Cup and B6 Nations have more or less been the same for the last ten years

A sniff of change in the air?

With Italy v France yet to play, assuming the calculations are correct, England faces what I perceive as her trickiest challenge of the 6Ns:
ire (on 81.34 points) at home -vs- eng (on 83.90 points)

If ire win by 1-15 points 0.956 82.30 82.94 No
If ire win by more than 15 1.434 82.77 82.47 Yes
If result is a draw 0.044 81.30 83.94 No
If eng win by 1-15 points 1.044 80.30 84.94 No
If eng win by more than 15 1.566 79.77 85.47 No

If the 'wrong France' pitch up tomorrow, then the European pot could be ready for a good stir next week.
If.

(OP updated)

Well it looks like England are 4th, France 5th, Ireland 6th, Italy 9th and Wales 10th. Scotland have no change.

Italy are ahead of Wales

wales606 wrote:Italy are ahead of Wales

Of course it also means Wales will pick up more points when they win games. If you win a reasonable number of games in the competition you'll be back up.

Well it does appear Italy are the ones blowing the rankings apart.


Is this the lowest wales have ever been (they had a pretty woeful run a couple of years ago ahead of the world cup too)? Which games would we expect them to win now?
As the ratings are now, and adding in the +3 home side weightings, they suggest that Wales would be the underdog in all the remaining fixtures (although ratings will obviously shift)
Could they go an entire year without a win? That would be a remarkable turn around even by post slam Wales standards.

Unofficially
1(1) NZLNEW ZEALAND 90.08
2(2) RSASOUTH AFRICA 86.94
3(3) AUSAUSTRALIA 86.87
4(5) ENGENGLAND 83.90
5(4) FRAFRANCE 83.49
6(6) IREIRELAND 81.34
7(7) SAMSAMOA 78.71
8(8) ARGARGENTINA 78.71
9(10) ITAITALY 77.82
10(9) WALWALES 77.27
11(11) TGATONGA 76.10
12(12) SCOSCOTLAND 75.83

Is this the lowest wales have ever been (they had a pretty woeful run a couple of years ago ahead of the world cup too)?

10th for a period in 2007/8

Pretty mental to think Scotland were ranked 6th not so long ago and beat Aus only a few months ago too
It does show that the top 12 teams are really competitive with one another now, great for rugby.

Equally unofficially (pre pts verification)

sco (on 75.83 points) at home -vs- ita (on 77.82 points)

If sco win by 1-15 points 0.899 76.73 76.92 No
If sco win by more than 15 1.348 77.18 76.47 Yes
If result is a draw 0.101 75.73 77.92 No
If ita win by 1-15 points 1.101 74.73 78.92 No
If ita win by more than 15 1.652 74.18 79.47 No

fra (on 83.49 points) at home -vs- wal (on 77.27 points)

If fra win by 1-15 points 0.078 83.57 77.19 No
If fra win by more than 15 0.117 83.61 77.15 No
If result is a draw 0.922 82.57 78.19 No
If wal win by 1-15 points 1.922 81.57 79.19 No
If wal win by more than 15 2.883 80.61 80.15 No

ire (on 81.34 points) at home -vs- eng (on 83.90 points)

If ire win by 1-15 points 0.956 82.30 82.94 No
If ire win by more than 15 1.434 82.77 82.47 Yes
If result is a draw 0.044 81.30 83.94 No
If eng win by 1-15 points 1.044 80.30 84.94 No
If eng win by more than 15 1.566 79.77 85.47 No

HammerofThunor wrote:

wales606 wrote:Italy are ahead of Wales

Of course it also means Wales will pick up more points when they win games. If you win a reasonable number of games in the competition you'll be back up.

It also means that Wales don't lose many points when they lose to higher ranked opponents. Which is everyone, apart from Scotland.

For England to gain points is difficult - with a grandslam would England pass Australia?

Alex_Germany wrote:

HammerofThunor wrote:

wales606 wrote:Italy are ahead of Wales

Of course it also means Wales will pick up more points when they win games. If you win a reasonable number of games in the competition you'll be back up.

It also means that Wales don't lose many points when they lose to higher ranked opponents. Which is everyone, apart from Scotland.

For England to gain points is difficult - with a grandslam would England pass Australia?

Its possible but partly depends on the ratings sides have when England face them, and them winning some by 15+
Passing Aus also means SA in reality since they are on almost identical ratings.

Keep dreaming Pete.

Though I'd expect you to look for devious ways to try and overtake the teams that battered your lot in November. Keep trying son!

Devious ways like winning games by big margins? I know us English are sneaky sods arent we.

If we are going by the "last game wins/king of the castle" rule then England are top having knocked NZ off the perch in the autmn anyway.

You know, the side your lot keep losing to (not scotland)