“RedNation” on the march

The "Red Nation" - whose male team have also been climbing in the?˜ - moved up from 10th to 5th, leap-frogging Ireland, Wales and Spain, but remain behind their great rivals, the USA, as a result of their only defeat in the tournament in Colorado at the beginning of the month.

The USA missed out on the final, but that win and their overall their performances mean that they also move up a place, to fourth.

South Africa may not have won a game, but some?˜good performances against significantly higher ranked teams were enough to push them into the top 10, above both Scotland and Australia. England, on the other hand, dropped points despite making the final due to suffering defeats to lower ranked teams. However, they remain firmly in second place.

The way the favours active teams, and in practice a ranking point margin?˜of less than 50 points between two teams can be overturned in a single game - so the differences between Canada and Ireland, or Wales and Italy, or Italy and Spain,?˜are very small and positions could very easily change after the Autumn Internationals and the Six Nations.

In the meanwhile it is interesting to note that - Australia aside (whose decline to 12th is entirely due to their inactivity) - the top six teams are exactly the same, and in exactly the same order, as they were after the last World Cup.

For the next round of intenationals in September the attention moves away from the top of the rankings, with the African and Asian World Cup qualifiers. Looking at the current rankings South Africa and Kazakhstan start as clear favourites, 3,000 and 1,000 ranking points ahead of their rivals - but in the real world anything could happen, especially in Africa where?˜no East African team has ever played outside of its region before.

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Data ???˜?˜Serge PIQUET August 2013