Rugby World Rankings (feeding draw for RWC2023 in November)

It has just been announced that the draw for RWC 2023 will happen after the November internationals. This adds an extra focus to the World Rankings. I shall use this post to update with the current situation.

Current (29/01/2020):

1 South Africa 94.19
2 New Zealand 92.11
3 England 88.82
4 Wales 85.02
5 Ireland 84.45
6 Australia 81.90
7 France 80.88
8 Japan 79.28
9 Scotland 79.23
10 Argentina 78.31
11 Fiji 76.21
12 Italy 72.04
13 Tonga 71.44
14 Georgia 71.26
15 Samoa 70.72
16 Spain 68.16
17 USA 68.10
18 Uruguay 67.41
19 Romania 66.69
20 Russia 63.09

This weekend

Numbers in following order - Win >15 points, Win<= 15 pts, draw, loss <=15 pts, Loss > 15 pts

England - 0.76, 0.51, -0.49, -1.49, -2.24
France - +2.24, +1.49, +0.49, -0.51, -0.56
Ireland - +0.27, +0.18, -0.82, -1.82, -2.73
Italy - +3.0, +2.0, +1, 0,0
Scotland - +2.73, +1.82, +0.82, -0.18, -0.27
Wales - 0,0, -1.0, -2.0, -3.0


Wales cannot gain points, Ireland can only gain minimal points and England a little bit more due to playing away. All told a noticeable shift in points will only come with a shock win

While it is relevant to have a good ranking going into this draw it’s debatable whether it is more important than development ready for a tournament in four years time

There are enough good teams for there to be two or three teams that can win a group.

Japan ranked third in pool going into RWC 2019, won their pool, Wales ranked third in their 2015 pool qualified in second for the knockout stages.

Seeding does not guarantee qualification, but Argentina and Fiji could testify that being seeded 3rd does make it harder. Ptential winners will qualify irrespective of seeding - as SA showed.

maestegmafia wrote:While it is relevant to have a good ranking going into this draw it’s debatable whether it is more important than development ready for a tournament in four years time

Picked up that point in the thread where this topic first came up. France certainly have very much taken the world cup as a 4 year project, they are in the fortunate position of having no worries regarding their ranking. I doubt that made a difference to the choice to go the way they have, but its an added bonus.

It is ridiculous that we are still settling the seedings so far in advance, but thats the rules. What it does do is make it very hard for a team that reached the last 8 in a world cup not be in the top 3 pots for the next. The summer tours throw up some interesting chances for tier 2 nations to grab a big ratings boost against development squads being sent from the north, but that will likely even out when they come short of preparation for the AIs