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Number one settled while Wales drop to lowest ever world ranking

Australia's Isaac Kailea (2R) tackles Wales' Harri O'Connor (3L) during the rugby union Test match between Australia and Wales at Allianz Stadium in Sydney on July 6, 2024. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP) / -- IMAGE RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - STRICTLY NO COMMERCIAL USE -- (Photo by SAEED KHAN/AFP via Getty Images)

The debate over who the number one team in the world is has been put to bed, for now, with Ireland at risk of moving to third in the world should they lose to South Africa again next weekend.

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Wales meanwhile dropped out of the top ten in the official World Rugby Rankings, which will be updated midday on Monday.

Their 25-16 loss to the Wallabies in Sydney allowed the hosts to move up to 8th overall, also extending their incredible run of success against Wales at home and giving fans renewed hope under new coach Joe Schmidt.

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Joe Schmidt and Liam Wright after Wallabies win over Wales

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    Joe Schmidt and Liam Wright after Wallabies win over Wales

    Coach Joe Schmidt and captain Liam Wright spoke to media following their 25-16 win over Wales in Sydney. Wright became the 89th captain of Australia when he led the side out for the first time in front of more than 35,00

    “A win is really important and it always is because that’s what you get judged on externally, but internally, I think just some of the moments that we did really well to earn the win, that’s what will be the focus for us building into Melbourne,” Schmidt told media post match.

    “We have a few things that we’ve been working on that are maybe a little bit different to how teams have played in Super Rugby, so the adjustment time for that to become second nature is inevitably going to take time.”

    Wales now sit in 11th spot, dropping out of the top ten and being replaced by Fiji.

    Italy swapped places with Australia, dropping to ninth following their 33-25 loss to Samoa at Apia Park on Friday. It was the first match in charge for new coach Mahonri Schwalger and sees Samoa move up to 13th in the rankings, overtaking Georgia.

    A France team with eight debutants beat Argentina 28-13 in their first test in Mendoza. While in New Zealand and Australia new coaches were able to pick up wins, Felipe Contepomi’s first test in charge of Argentina didn’t go so well.

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    France and Argentina are unmoved in the rankings, staying at fourth and seventh respectively. They meet again in Velez next weekend.

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    The All Blacks stay in third place following their narrow 16-15 win over England in Dunedin, but should they win again next weekend, and Ireland lose, they will move up to second in the world, with Ireland dropping to third.

    Scott Robertson got off to a shaky start in charge, with England pushing his side in what captain Scott Barrett described as an “arm wrestle”.

    “It’s great to see how quickly the boys have come together under a new coaching system,” Barrett said.

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    “England shifted us around with little kicks in behind. They just squeezed us at times, made us try to play out of our own half and we were a bit slow to adapt.”

    England remains in fifth place in the world rankings.

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    At the top of the rankings table, the battle for number one was highly anticipated but didn’t quite deliver in terms of top quality rugby, with some scrappy play from both South Africa and Ireland as the hosts came out on top 27-20 at Loftus Versfeld.

    TMO interventions and poor goal-kicking played a large part in the outcome, and while the world champion Springboks picked up 0.31 ranking points to stay at number one and extend their lead, Ireland will be confident that with a bit of luck, they have a great opportunity to bounce back and claim a win next weekend in Durban.

    “The goal was achieved but it was far from a perfect performance,” coach Rassie Erasmus said post match.

    “Ireland are a team we’ve had zero success against since (we took over in) 2018 … they’ve really had our number. I wouldn’t say it’s a monkey off our back. Any day they can step up and beat you and be No. 1.”

    To overtake South Africa and reclaim number one, Ireland would have had to have won by 16 points or more in Pretoria. After the evidence on show this past weekend, it’s looking unlikely that such a rout would take place in Durban in the second test.

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    Comments

    4 Comments
    N
    Neil 268 days ago

    We won't find out who the real number 1 is until the end of the year. The first half of the year the rankings are always skewed towards the northern hemisphere teams, because they all pick up rankings points during the 6 nations while the Southern hemisphere teams aren't playing at all.

    p
    paul 268 days ago

    So based on irish logic: SA beat England and NZ by a point at last matchup but now NZ beats England by one. So I reckon NZ has now moved to joint number one. So if SA can put in their diary to have the cup ready to hand over for our 50% in Nov 2025 that would be appreciated. Also Ireland now way off as lost to both nz and sa by way more than 1. So England must be no 3. Not sure who finished third at rwc but likely them so they can hang on to their bronze medals for now. Boy this pseudo world champ stuff is so complex to keep track of.

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    JW 46 minutes ago
    Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

    It is now 22 years since Michael Lewis published his groundbreaking treatise on winning against the odds

    I’ve never bothered looking at it, though I have seen a move with Clint as a scout/producer. I’ve always just figured it was basic stuff for the age of statistics, is that right?

    Following the Moneyball credo, the tailor has to cut his cloth to the material available

    This is actually a great example of what I’m thinking of. This concept has abosolutely nothing to do with Moneyball, it is simple being able to realise how skillsets tie together and which ones are really revelant.


    It sounds to me now like “moneyball” was just a necessity, it was like scienctest needing to come up with some random experiment to make all the other world scholars believe that Earth was round. The American sporting scene is very unique, I can totally imagine one of it’s problems is rich old owners not wanting to move with the times and understand how the game has changed. Some sort of mesiah was needed to convert the faithful.


    While I’m at this point in the article I have to say, now the NRL is a sport were one would stand up and pay attention to the moneyball phenom. Like baseball, it’s a sport of hundreds of identical repetitions, and very easy to data point out.

    the tailor has to cut his cloth to the material available and look to get ahead of an unfair game in the areas it has always been strong: predictive intelligence and rugby ‘smarts’

    Actually while I’m still here, Opta Expected Points analysis is the one new tool I have found interesting in the age of data. Seen how the random plays out as either likely, or unlikely, in the data’s (and algorithms) has actually married very closely to how I saw a lot of contests pan out.


    Engaging return article Nick. I wonder, how much of money ball is about strategy as apposed to picks, those young fella’s got ahead originally because they were picking players that played their way right? Often all you here about is in regards to players, quick phase ruck ball, one out or straight up, would be were I’d imagine the best gains are going to be for a data driven leap using an AI model of how to structure your phases. Then moving to tactically for each opposition.

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