World Rugby Rankings


The World Rugby Rankings is a ranking system for national teams in rugby union, managed by World Rugby, the sport's governing body. There are separate men's and women's rankings. The teams of World Rugby's member nations are ranked based on their game results, with the most successful teams being ranked highest. A point system is used, with points being awarded on the basis of the results of World Rugby-recognized international matches. Rankings are based on the team's performance, with more recent results and more significant matches being more heavily weighted to help reflect the current competitive state of a team. The men's ranking system was introduced the month before the 2003 Rugby World Cup, with the first new rankings issued on 8 September 2003, when they were called the "IRB Rankings".

Rankings

Rank leaders

World Rugby Ranking Leaders

When the system was introduced England were the top team and maintained that position following victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup. New Zealand took the lead from 14 June 2004.
After winning the 2007 Rugby World Cup final, South Africa became the third team to achieve first place. The first two fixtures of the 2008 Tri Nations resulted in the top two teams switching places: the All Blacks regained the top spot after defeating South Africa in the Tri-Nations opener on 5 July 2008 in Wellington; a week later the Springboks returned the favour in Dunedin, scoring their first win over the All Blacks in New Zealand since 1998, reclaiming the top spot, only for the All Blacks to defeat both Australia and South Africa in August 2008 to regain the top spot by a considerable margin. South Africa regained the lead in July 2009 after beating New Zealand in Bloemfontein and kept the lead until losing to France in November of that year, allowing the All Blacks to regain the top spot.
A change at the top would not occur for a record period of 508 weeks, when Wales became the top ranked team for the first time after defeating England at Cardiff in a World Cup 2019 warm-up test in August, following on a streak in which they won 15 of 16 tests, including a Six Nations Grand Slam. Two weeks later New Zealand returned to the top of the summit following Ireland's victory over Wales in Cardiff in a World Cup 2019 warm-up test. However, on 7 September 2019, Ireland defeated Wales again, this time in Dublin, and they were installed as the number 1 team for the first time in their history, which they held entering the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
The first round of matches in the 2019 Rugby World Cup saw a further change at the top, with New Zealand's pool stage victory over the Springboks seeing them regain the top spot. England's defeat of New Zealand in the 2019 World Cup semi-finals saw them return to the top spot for the first time since 2004. A week later, South Africa reclaimed top spot after defeating England in the final.
2021 saw the ranking lead change several times with South Africa and New Zealand each holding the top spot at various points. In 2022, France replaced South Africa on top of the rankings following their victory over Japan in their summer tour and the Springboks' home defeat by a touring Wales team. A week later, Ireland claimed top spot following victory in their summer tour to New Zealand.
Ireland would hold the top spot until October 2023, when they lost to New Zealand in the quarter-final stage of the 2023 Rugby World Cup – with South Africa replacing them.
However, following their away defeat to Argentina in the 2024 Rugby Championship, South Africa relinquished top spot to Ireland.
The Springboks regained the no. 1 position after Ireland's home defeat to New Zealand during the 2024 Autumn Nations Series.
Since the rankings began, the winners of every edition of the World Cup have held the number 1 spot at the end of the tournament.
New Zealand have been the most consistently ranked #1 team since the introduction of the world rankings in 2003, having held the #1 ranking for most of the time during this period. South Africa is second, with Ireland, England, Wales and France making up the remainder.
To date, 2019 is the only calendar year in which more than three nations have held the number 1 spot – with five nations holding that title at some point during the year.

Best and worst ranking positions

Below is a list of the best and worst ranking positions for nations that have appeared in the Rugby World Cup:

Rating leaders

According to World Rugby the "top side in the World will normally have a rating above 90", however, this is not always the case. New Zealand retained the number 1 position in August 2019 following defeat by Australia at Perth in the Rugby Championship, despite their ratings falling to 89.04. A week later, Wales increased their rating to 89.43 and claimed the top spot by beating England at Cardiff in a World Cup 2019 warm-up test. In contrast, some countries that have reached a rating of over 90 rating points, such as Australia and Ireland, did not achieve the top spot, although Ireland would eventually reach the top of the summit with a rating of 89.47 following their victory over Wales in a World Cup 2019 warm-up test in Dublin, while Australia still to date have never attained the number 1 ranked position. This is due to the success of New Zealand who had been rated above 90 rating points for a record of 509 weeks and 6 days, which ended following the aforementioned defeat to Australia.
New Zealand also holds the record for the highest rating points amassed by any team, which currently stands at 96.57. England first held the record at 93.99 on the 24 November 2003, following their World Cup win in Australia; however, New Zealand surpassed this on 28 August 2006 with a rating of 94.62, following their Tri Nations victory over South Africa in Pretoria. The All Blacks would go on to push this record further over the years, reaching 95.01 points on the 25 June 2007 after beating South Africa in Durban, 96.10 points after their 2015 World Cup win in England and 96.30 points on 22 August 2016, following their Rugby Championship victory over Australia in Sydney, to its current record of 96.57, which they attained on 10 October 2016 after defeating South Africa in Durban. New Zealand's defeat by Ireland at Soldier Field, Chicago as part of the Autumn International Test Series in November 2016 ended their record streak.

Most and least accumulated ratings

Below is a list of the most and least accumulated rating points for each of the nations that have appeared in the Rugby World Cup since the ranking tables were first published on the 13 October 2003:

List of rankings leader

Men's

Six teams have led the world rankings at one point, of which two had a single short stay at that position - Wales for two weeks in 2019, and France for a single week in 2022. Otherwise the top step on the rankings has been divided between four teams. New Zealand have by far the longest total weeks and longest individual reign, with 743 weeks, the equivalent of nearly 14 years, at the top, the longest period of which was a near ten-year period between November 2009 and September 2019, finally ended by Ireland's first short reign of two weeks. They have also led the table on eight occasions, most recently in October 2021.
South Africa have topped the rankings on six occasions for a combined total of 244 weeks as the highest ranked side in the world including 186 weeks since the end of 2019. In that later period their closest challenger has been Ireland, who only topped the rankings for the first time, briefly, in September 2019, but had racked up 70 weeks as world number one in three batches since that date, and were current world number one leading into the 2024 Autumn internationals. England have been ranking leader three times, for 40 weeks in total, the bulk of that being in two stretches across 39 of the first 40 weeks of the rankings between September 2003 and June 2004. The fifteen-year gap between topping the rankings in June 2004 and October 2019 remains the longest gap between reigns.
New Zealand twice, South Africa and Ireland are the only sides to spend a year or more continuously on top of the men's world rankings.
TeamStart dateEnd dateWeeksTotal
Weeks
8 September 200310 November 200399
10 November 200317 November 200311
17 November 200314 June 20043039
14 June 200422 October 2007175176
22 October 20077 July 20083737
7 July 200814 July 20081177
14 July 200818 August 2008542
18 August 200827 July 200949226
27 July 200916 November 20091658
16 November 200919 August 2019509735
19 August 20192 September 201922
2 September 20199 September 20191736
9 September 201923 September 201922
23 September 201928 October 20195741
28 October 20194 November 2019140
4 November 201920 September 202198156
20 September 20214 October 20212743
4 October 202111 July 202240196
11 July 202218 July 202211
18 July 202216 October 20236567
16 October 202323 September 202449245
23 September 202411 November 2024774
11 November 202418 August 202540285
18 August 202515 September 20254747
15 September 2025Present17302

Summary
TeamTotal WeeksMost consecutive
weeks		Separate
reigns
7475099
302988
74653
40303
221
111