iRB World Ranking changes during the RWC

With the advantage of "double points" during World Cups on offer, there will be some potentially significant shake ups in the "World Order" throughout the Tournament.
While the main focus is who wins the Final, there will be great interest, especially for those without a real chance, to see how far they have climbed in the World Rankings by the end of the Tournament.

Pre Tournament Rankings:

1(1) NEW ZEALAND 93.38
2(2) AUSTRALIA 87.03
3(3) FRANCE 86.90
4(4) SOUTH AFRICA 85.40
5(5) IRELAND 81.12
6(6) ARGENTINA 81.05
7(7) ENGLAND 78.89
8(8) WALES 76.45
9(9) ITALY 75.37
10(10) SAMOA 74.97
11(11) SCOTLAND 74.95
12(12) FIJI 70.52
13(13) CANADA 70.06
14(14) TONGA 67.52
15(15) USA 67.20
16(16) ROMANIA 66.79
17(17) GEORGIA 66.38
18(18) JAPAN 65.85
19(19) RUSSIA 64.37
20(20) URUGUAY 62.66
21(21) SPAIN 62.32
22(22) PORTUGAL 62.03
23(23) KOREA 58.02
24(24) NAMIBIA 57.15

Not Competing at the RWC Finals

The first match brings our first Rankings shake up!

Argentina defeat France 17-12:

1(1) NEW ZEALAND 93.38
2(2) AUSTRALIA 87.03
3(4) SOUTH AFRICA 85.40
4(6) ARGENTINA 84.82
5(3) FRANCE 83.13
6(5) IRELAND 81.12
7(7) ENGLAND 78.89
8(8) WALES 76.45
9(9) ITALY 75.37
10(10) SAMOA 74.97
11(11) SCOTLAND 74.95
12(12) FIJI 70.52
13(13) CANADA 70.06
14(14) TONGA 67.52
15(15) USA 67.20
16(16) ROMANIA 66.79
17(17) GEORGIA 66.38
18(18) JAPAN 65.85
19(19) RUSSIA 64.37
20(20) URUGUAY 62.66
21(21) SPAIN 62.32
22(22) PORTUGAL 62.03
23(23) KOREA 58.02
24(24) NAMIBIA 57.15

Rankings climb

Rankings fall

Not Competing at the RWC Finals

Interesting to note how the rankings are done. Anyone who isn't familiar can check it out here: http://www.irb.com/rankings/explain/index.html

I find it strange that you can only go up when you win and down when you lose. Based on the England vs USA game, we'd all probably say the US is better then their ranking and England lower then their ranking. But in reality England got maximum points from that game because they won by more then 15 and it was a World Cup game. Doesn't seem to make sense, but reading the IRB explanation you can understand why they do it that way. They think it would be weird if a team won a game and dropped in the rankings just because they didn't win by as much as they should have. Also they note that if the lower team is in fact better it should affect other results. Guess we'll see how that works out in US vs Tonga.

Love your work Burgs, keep the updates coming. IRB site only updates once a week or something. Much prefer your up to the minute run down!!!

I think, can be corrected, that 'home' games carry a negaitve weighting and 'away' tests generally have a positive weighting.
All RWC games, for calculations, are deemed as away games even France. So the changes are likely to be a little more dramatic than in a normal test series.

Sorry folks, has proven a tad harder to keep tabs on than I envisaged however, here is the updated movers since the last ladder I posted.
Positions 1-9 unchanged.

10(11) SCOTLAND 74.95
11(12) FIJI 73.07
12(14) TONGA 72.56
13(10) SAMOA 71.87
14(13) CANADA 67.50
15(16) ROMANIA 66.51
16(17) GEORGIA 66.38
17(15) USA 65.26