12-year wait ended as major World Ranking change lands

I can see Ireland falling down to below argies and Australia. With both those two in top 6

Congratz Azzurri, a great credit to the way you’ve been playing the last 4 years.

well then it will change again once the rugby championship teams start playing laterin the year

Scotland need a new coach. Townsend beaming at the prospect of having the best Scotland squad ever available to him before the game against Italy and then they play the dummest most ill disciplined and error-strewn rugby. Lineouts were comically bad. Completely out-coached and outplayed.

If England manages a clean sweep of the 6N to claim a Grand Slam, that would put them on top of the world rankings while the southern hemisphere nations are in hibernation. Then, when they meet the Springboks in the inaugural game of the Nations Championship they’ll be precariously close to equaling their men’s record of 18 consecutive wins - especially if they have a warm up match before that summer series. Similarly, the Springboks will be looking to match and beat that record 18 match winning streak to cement their claim as (one of?) the best team/s ever, and reclaim their place at the top of the rankings. They’d need to beat the All Blacks another four times along the way to 18 wins. Of course, France, Argentina, Ireland and others will have their own plans. This is all building up towards an epic rugby year, in which titans from the north and south are playing some of their best rugby. Let the games begin!

IRE are an interesting team to compare, traditionally strong in defence but when you look at their results they are not prolific scorers against top teams (usually sub 20 points) but they do put big scores on lesser teams to flatter some of the averages.

2019 - Played 13, PF 263 (ave 20 points) PA 228 (ave 18 points)

2020 - Played 9, PF 194 (ave 22 points) PA 155 (ave 17 points)

2021 - Played 7, PF 246 (ave 35 points) PA PA 129 (ave 18 points)

2022 - Played 11, PF 258 (ave 23 points) PA 182 (ave 17 points)

2023 - Played 13, PF 444 (ave 34 points) PA 130 (ave 10 points)

2024 - Played 11, PF 298 (ave 27 points) PA 165 (ave 15 points)

2025 - Played 11 (ex Portugal), PF (ave 35 points) PA 206 (ave 19 points)

The change in defence since 2023 has put greater pressure on the attack to score points but when they usually score less than 20 points against a top team, you are seeing them struggle against the top teams since 2024.

It’s not bad but statistically, the adverse results are more defence related, rather than attack, which has reached the tipping point and left them losing games they traditionally would have won.

One try less in defence and one better in attack would dramatically change their fortunes.

I predict ARG will be above IRE by the time of RWC 2027.