Men’s World Rugby Rankings

After all the fallout of the Autumn Internationals, there has been some rejigging of the men’s World Rugby rankings, but the Springboks did just enough to cling onto top spot in the log, following their victories over Wales, Scotland and narrow defeat to England on the northern tour.

This is how the top ten of the rankings looks right now.

(via World Rugby)

If you look at who is climbing and who is falling, at the end of the latest Test window, Wales and Argentina have swapped places following a rough tour for los Pumas, and Wales’ win over Australia.

The latter has also swapped position with France following the Wallabies’ loss to Wales (they also lost to Scotland and England on tour), while les Bleus climb into fifth position after their hefty win over the All Blacks to round off November.

Related: Was Romain Ntamack run from in-goal moment of the autumn series?

According to World Rugby’s official rankings explanation: “Both Men’s and Women’s World Rugby Rankings are calculated using a ‘Points Exchange’ system, in which sides take points off each other based on the match result. Whatever one side gains, the other loses.

“The exchanges are based on the match result, the relative strength of each team, and the margin of victory, and there is an allowance for home advantage.

“Points exchanges are doubled during the World Cup Finals to recognise the unique importance of this event, but all other full international matches are treated the same, to be as fair as possible to countries playing a different mix of friendly and competitive matches across the world.

Any match that is not a full international between two member countries does not count at all.”

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