Talk:World Rugby Rankings

Home Matches at the World Cup
For the first match at the 2015 World Cup, England played Fiji at Twickenham. However, the nature of the draw meant that they were technically the away team and had to use away team dressing room. Does anyone know if the ranking concidered this game to be a home game for England or neutral (or even a home match for Fiji...which would surely be crazy!) Graemec2 (talk) 14:27, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Incomplete Updating
When anybody is updating the rankings can they please ensure they update the entire table not just the top 10 or such.

Also the 'Historical Ranking' should be left as New Zealand (unless there is a change in number one), it was recently changed to Wales.

F1lover22 (talk) 17:13, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Bias against Japanese
To Wiki Admins,

Please investigate the disgusting diatribe against Japanese team in the rankings table.

--85.28.114.158 16:45, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you may have missed the point here. The IRB do the tables, not anyone editing on here. --Nunners 20:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

IRB does the tables, officially, but some idiot wrote a bunch of rather unsporting and rude comments about the Japanese team, for what reason I cannot comprehend. Look at the history. --85.28.74.246 17:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I cannot find any diatribe - and I have looked at the history. Please be more precise. --Bob 16:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

removed section
I removed the following from the main article, as I am not convinced it really belongs:
 * The lead of the article states "The IRB World Rankings is a ranking system for men's national teams in rugby union". This info relates to women's rugby
 * The rankings aren't even IRB endorsed, are not official, and thus don't belong under "IRB world rankings"
 * The european rankings again aren't IRB, and aren't world rankings.

Nouse4aname (talk) 15:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Although the lead states that the article concerns ranking for "men's national teams" the main title does not, and either at least begs the question as to how women's teams are ranked (or whether they are). To ignore women's teams, or to work on the assumption that "IRB World Rankings" will only refer to the game as played by one sex or the other is not a sustainable point of view in the 21st century.

As a result, even if it may be considered superfluous to include the paragraphs objected to, at the very least there should be some mention of the situation in the women's game.

Johnlbirch (talk) 21:28, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Women's rugby
Currently the IRB does not compile a similar ranking system for women's international rugby. Where rankings are referred to by some boards these will normally be the finishing positions in the previous Women's Rugby World Cup, which only takes place every four years and will only include those countries that qualified for the finals. Seedings for each World Cup are also influenced by these positions, but not entirely decided by them. The rankings based on the 2006 tournament are:

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FIRA-AER do produce an annual ranking of European nations, based on previous season's FIRA and Six Nations competitions, for use in FIRA tournaments. As these will be based on more recent performances they can contradict the IRB list and also include countries not featuring in the World Cup-based ranking (such as Wales, for example). On the other hand they obviously only include European nations. The rankings for start of the 2007/2008 season (based on results in 2006/2007) were:

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Ireland
WikiProject_Rugby_union87.198.164.254 (talk) 11:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on World Rugby Rankings. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20071005062318/http://www.irb.com/rankings/explain/index.html to http://www.irb.com/rankings/explain/index.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 11:58, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Best and Worst Points
Any objections to adding best and worst points to the table? It would be interesting, for example, to see what/when New Zealand's best points score, rather than just a list of years they've been ranked no.1. Greenman (talk) 12:40, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

World Ranking Table
Someone has been removing the World Ranking Table from the article. I have restored it because like other sports articles they have the world rankings especially when talking about the world rankings of that specific sport like this article does.

Incorrect rankings
The world ranking table is incorrect despite saying as of 5th November 2018. Chile is rated World #30 not England for a second time Anyone able to change this- I can't work out how Josh.holmes2000 (talk) 01:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Update Table 13 November 2018
Can someone update table to the current World Rugby standings 13 November 2018. ( https://www.world.rugby/rankings/mru?lang=en ). Currently there is a Semi-protection on the the page because of previous vandalism and there has been multiple movements in the rankings — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.0.116.86 (talk) 13:38, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Women's World Rugby Rankings
This article does not cover the Women's World Rugby Rankings. Currently World Rugby do count these. I have been trying to add them but I am having some problems. I don't know if they should be here or on a separate wiki article. The FIFA soccer World Rankings for the men and women are displayed on two separate pages and I think it might be more reasonable if we do that here, otherwise we could have two very long tables next to each other that could take away from the article, not to mention a possible future Ad nauseam debate on which ranking table (men or women)should be above the other. I cannot create a new wiki article and I would appreciate it, if it is suitable to someone interested, that they create a new article. I have created a wiki table similar to the men's rankings and that displays the women's rankings and I have changed the links so they connect to the respective women's national rugby teams rather than the men's which is what occurs on this article and I have changed the citation so that it goes directly to World Rugby's Women's World Rankings. See below

(Note: I've added closing brackets and blank lines to stop this table (which, incidentally, was created by some unsigned author and has nothing to do with me) eating up and reducing the visibility of the next section).Tlhslobus (talk) 17:13, 8 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, although this section and its table were not created by me, I agree in principle that having the woman's table somewhere is desirable in theory and per WP:BIAS, though I don't know whether there will in practice be enough personpower available in practice to keep it up-to-date. As an interim measure, a See Also link to the World Rugby Women's table may be a good idea (assuming it's not already there,as I'm about to check now).Tlhslobus (talk) 17:38, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I've now added an External Link, at least as an interim measure, per WP:BIAS, WP:WORKINPROGRESS, WP:IAR if needed, and quite possibly a few other relevant rules as well. However I don't expect to be doing much more about this myself anytime soon (per WP:NOTCOMPULSORY and WP:BNO), tho that needn't stop other editors from choosing to try to do so if they wish. Tlhslobus (talk) 17:55, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
 * On reflection I've now added a single sentence in the lead to clarify the matter for interested readers. This is not ideal as the lead is supposed to be a summary of what's in the article pet WP:LEAD. But it's probably best for our readers to have it there per WP:IAR and WP:BIAS, while awaiting more stuff being added to the body of the article (or to a new article) by others, per WP:WORKINPROGRESS, WP:NOTCOMPULSORY and WP:BNO. Of course if WP:Wikilawyers aren't happy with this, one can simply fix it by, for instance, copying the aforementioned sentence into a new section called Women's Rankings, and then shortening the sentence in the lead. On second thoughts I think I'll now do just that. Tlhslobus (talk) 19:03, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Done.Tlhslobus (talk) 19:09, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Persistent Vandalism
There is persistent vandalism to this article and its table contents. It may be necessary to protect this article by a semi protected request — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.0.116.86 (talk) 16:20, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Semi-protection would definitely have been a good idea yesterday, presumably due to the apparent conflict between the media announcing Ireland is in top spot and the article saying NZ is in Top spot (as it will be until sometime tomorrow when the new tables are published). And I've no objection to semi-protection now as a possibly useful precaution. However I'm not an admin so I can't do it myself, and admins may notice that the article now explains the NZ-Ireland issue, and that it's now over 18 hours since the last apparent vandalism, which may or may not be relevant to their decision. Tlhslobus (talk) 17:29, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

World Rugby Ranking Leaders Plot
Does anyone know why England's short-lived reign as number one nation during the 2019 World Cup doesn't appear in this plot? All the other leading nations during 2019 are listed in the correct order. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.60.80.54 (talk) 18:38, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

This can now be ignored, as England now appears in the plot. 194.129.64.4 (talk) 11:38, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Victories in Extra Time
It is not made clear in the explanations (either in this article or in the official World Rugby explanation) how a competition match is treated if it is level at Full Time, goes into Extra Time under the rules of the competition, and is thereafter won by one or the other side.

In this circumstance (which happened in the recent Final of the 2020 Autumn Nations Cup between England and France), is the match considered a draw for the purposes of determining the rankings (since this was the result at Full Time - which is when the result would normally be determined), or is it considered a victory for the side which ultimately won?

194.129.64.4 (talk) 12:07, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

I too had been wondering this. It can be 'inferred' from the updated rankings that England have been credited with victory. Not sure I agree with that, as the outcome of the match was a draw. Extra-time was only played as a method to find a team to award the trophy to.

It could just as easily have been decided on most tries scored in the group stage, fewest penalties conceded or even the toss of a coin. Would the rankings have reflected an England 'win' in those circumstances?

If I had a bet on England to win, it would have been a loser - as the game was a draw. Yet a draw, in the view of World Rugby, was an impossible outcome for this match! Woodlandscaley (talk) 13:15, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

New Section/text?
Is it worth including a section on how the rankings can be affected by who plays whom regularly?


 * E.g. Italy plays in the Six Nations every year, yet frequently loses all five of their games. Thus their maximum ranking points are effectively capped at 10 less than the lowest number obtained by the other five nations in the tournament. As long as this continues, if Italy gains more ranking points over the Autumn, most of them will be lost during the following Spring.
 * Georgia doesn't play in the Six Nations, and rarely plays any of the six nations that compete in the tournament. Thus its ranking points are effectively capped at 10 more than the highest number obtained by the other European nations that it regularly plays. As long as it continues to dominate its regular European tournament it will only be in danger of losing significant numbers of ranking points if it plays a Tier 1 nation. But such matches are rare.
 * The combination of the above means that currently Georgia is more highly ranked than Italy, and is likely to remain more highly ranked. But since they rarely play against each other, or against the same opponents within a short time frame it isn't possible to know if Georgia is actually the better side.

194.129.64.4 (talk) 11:16, 16 March 2021 (UTC)


 * It's a fair point and one I think should be added, however, the questions are, 1) where would you add it? and 2) would it require a new section to explain it with similarities to the The Rugby Championship teams. Particularly Argentina versus Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, the USA and Canada.37.18.134.184 (talk) 14:18, 28 September 2021 (UTC)