All Blacks still number one, Wallabies secure second spot,,,

Australia have retained second place in the latest IRB World Rankings after bouncing back from back-to-back losses against the All Blacks to beat South Africa 26-19 in Perth on Saturday and climb off the bottom of The Rugby Championship table.
  Whoever emerged victorious at Patersons Stadium would occupy second place and Australia ensured that would be them by edging a tight battle, although it came at a cost with captain Will Genia rupturing knee ligaments to rule him out for the rest of the year.

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Australia’s win has not only increased their advantage over South Africa to 2.42 rating points but also reduced their deficit to number one side New Zealand, who earlier that day had overcome Argentina 21-5 in Wellington.

New Zealand’s victory had no impact on the rating of either side, a consequence of the world champions being at home and ranked seven places and 13.09 rating points above the Pumas in the IRB World Rankings.

There were three other matches over the weekend, although only one resulted in a positional change in the rankings, Peru falling one place to 64th - swapping places with Malaysia - on the back of a 28-17 loss to hosts Venezuela on day one of the South American B Championship.

This tournament is part of the Americas qualifying process for Rugby World Cup 2015 and the opening day also saw favourites Paraguay overcome Colombia 54-17 in Valencia. Paraguay and Venezuela have both improved their ratings slightly, but remain 40th and 53rd respectively.

Denmark were the other winners over the weekend, beating Norway 22-15 in a Viking Tri Nations encounter played on neutral soil at Rosslyn Park FC in England. The win increases Denmark’s rating slightly in 61st, while 93rd ranked Norway slip closer to Vanuatu below them.

i love how even if the All Blacks were to win against the pumas in argentina, our rankings would still not go up and winsagainst the Boks and wallabies only increase it by small margins, yet the gap between the All Blacks and the rest widens more and more every year, :o)

When your team is rated at 92.43 there isn't much more room to go up. Only one way to go..... The problem is the two behind you. The Aussies don't have enough to catch you, and the SA's need a couple of years to get their shite together. By the looks of it, you will be enjoying it for at least another couple of years.

 These rankings are not going to change anytime soon. As you have mentioned, if anything New Zealand will slowly climb higher. 

The player depth of both Australia and South Africa for all positions in a team, is not enough to challenge the All Blacks. Australia mostly lacks the forward depth and South Africa the Backline depth & rucking. New Zealand coaching also seems to be the most professional in the world, at all age levels.

Although if their is any chance that New Zealand will lose a game this year, I would think it will most likely be in South Africa. 

Until Australia get better forwards and more depth to cover injuries they should continue to be on the losing side of the scale to the AllBlacks.

As for South Africa, we are in a worrying position with the lack of direction in the backline and our rucking ability at the moment is terribale.Our ruck play is the worst it has ever been at the moment, and we need a quality fetcher who is small and fast like yesterday. Hopefully Brussow will be back soon

One thing that is surprising though is the amount of first choice boks that are injured in comparision to 1st choice All Blacks. If the boks had all our first choice players I think we could push the All Blacks in New Zealand.

Also players like Goosen and Lambie next year should be a much better backline. The year end tour should be about a new beginning for the Backline. 

I am predicting wins for the Boks in both home games against Australia and the All Blacks. So this should help the rankings somewhat. However if their are loses, and things could go really bad- looking at the rankings below, it would be easy for the Boks to slip to 5th or 6th- if we lost end of the year tour games. 

I do expect South Africa to much stronger next year. 

I like this listing better. :)

Hi Can, I see Canada will be playing the NZMaoris, 23 Nov in UK . Leicester ? Give em hell !

Yup, we are. Can't wait for that one. We play them in Oxford I believe. We will give it our best, like we always do. :)

Have to get through the Americas Rugby Championship first though in October.

Argentina, USA, Canada, and Uruguay.  Should be a decent tournament for us. Argentina won it last year.

No argument here, The All Blacks are the best team in the world, and by a comfortable margin. Maybe in a year or so when all the dust has settled with our new coach, and once we have a more settled team, then we can start to realistically try to challenge the AB's supremicy....but that is not even nearly going to happen this year.