More joy for Irish
20 Mar 2006
Ireland have moved up to fifth place in the latest IRB World Rankings, following their dramatic win over the Poms in the Six Nations.
The world champions have dropped to sixth thanks to three defeats in this year’s championship.
Italy drop one place to 12th as a result of Scotland’s Six Nations victory over the Azzurri in Rome.
France, crowned Six Nations champions this weekend, remain in third, while Wales, beaten by the French in Cardiff, stay seventh behind England.
In the European Nations Cup, Romania defeated Portugal 27-3 in Lisbon and move up two places to 13th. Portugal remain in 18th, but are now just 0.21 ratings points ahead of Tonga.
IRB RANKINGS – TOP 10
1 (1) New Zealand 93.32
2 (2) South Africa 88.76
3 (3) France 85.95
4 (4) Australia 83.93
5 (6) Ireland 82.74
6 (5) England 80.59
7 (7) Wales 78.64
8 (8) Scotland 77.70
9 (9) Argentina 75.16
10 (10) Samoa 73.97
25 Comments
20 Mar 2006, 15:31 pm
6th place is flattering the Poms…
20 Mar 2006, 15:32 pm
bwahahahahhahahaa
wonder wheres st.m?
20 Mar 2006, 15:43 pm
Thought Scotland would of moved up the rankings.
20 Mar 2006, 15:58 pm
Ja, shows how important away wins are compared to home victories!
20 Mar 2006, 16:00 pm
Reckon come TriNations, the Aussies will move back up to 3rd before a close tussle with the Boks for 2nd place.
20 Mar 2006, 16:22 pm
I think Australia will be strong this year. all the injuries are over for the big name players.
20 Mar 2006, 17:12 pm
surfbok & wls
i agree that the aussies will move back up the table, especially with the talent that they have coming through.
as for our beloved boks, they have to start winning away from home against the top 3 consistently and that will only happen when they learn to win away from home consistently in the super 14 tounament.
20 Mar 2006, 17:15 pm
Just goes to show what a load of **** the rankings are. Argentina (no.9) would crucify any of the Home Unions right now. And I don’t care if England falls to 10th, I will still feel bloody jumpy when the Boks play them. Six years is a long time.
20 Mar 2006, 17:26 pm
I reckon that Argentina would be higher up the rankings if they played in the Tri Nations or had regular internationals.
20 Mar 2006, 18:07 pm
England should be removed from the rankings altogether. Headquarters should be renamed Hindquarters since they are such a sorry group of arseholes.
20 Mar 2006, 18:39 pm
Ouens – whilst I absolutely agree with some of the rationale and the obvious plight of the Poms currently my biggest fear is that whilst we somehow believe the Boks to be a good team at the moment I think statistically we have a major issue – we barely beat Wales in Nov and lost to France at Stade de France, unless you havn’t read this year’s itinery – we play the Poms twice at Hindquarters and France again at Stade. That’s 3 games at 2 venues we havn’t won in since the 90′s that’s over 6 years ago. That suggests that against the 3rd and 6th best teams in the world we can’t beat them at home, hence we don’t travel well. Argue all you want but we havn’t won in NZ, England or France (Paris) since the 90′s. Our record in Oz isn’t much better.
We must either view the year end tour as a fact finding mission, play our options, blood some new players, try new combos, test new strategies or we must come to win. Currently we come to win, but get our butts kicked and then blame a long season, the same long season the Kiwis and Aussies endure too, but it must be highveld air that drains us more.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Boks will be lucky to make it through the Quarters. Mark my words, if England play to form in the NH they’ll beat us, that places us vs NZ in the Quarters. Game over ala 2003 on current form.
Hence we have to beat England and setup the easier path, vs Wales and France in the Semis to the Final. Ultimately is this any easier than NZ then Aus in the Semi? I’d argue maybe not, but I know I’d rather chance France than face NZ then Aus then France! To that end these end of year games are key – from both a mindset advantage perspective and to prove we have a team capable of beating them in the NH. I’d suggest Jake’s rough and tumble tactics backed by sterling defence has been found out, it’s whether he’s adaptable and can mould the team to defend and attack in equal measure which will dictate our results in 07. Personally, I’ve bought tickets through to the Semi’s and I hope I don’t have to EBAY any of the those tickets!
20 Mar 2006, 18:41 pm
watching the world champs slide down the table has made me day!
20 Mar 2006, 18:48 pm
These ranking still don’t mean the boks will win games away from home … we need guys who can step up to the plate as a team when they travel (like the sharks did on the week end) just like they do when the play at Ellis Park, Loftus, Bloem, etc … when that happens then the boks will always be in the top 2.
21 Mar 2006, 05:38 am
Nice one ireland
21 Mar 2006, 09:27 am
weepee to say we harldy beat Wales lol, that game was a comfortable win. We also dident take a first string side to Europe last year, people forget that. Against France we comfortably won the second half (yes it was **** that they got the drop on us in the first). In NZ we came far far closer to beating them in the last two years in NZ than they have come to beating us over here? France ran us close here in the first game (due to a **** up on our behalf) We thrashed them in the second game and that was there first choice team.
Remember to we are going into the third season with the same coach, and same core team, when last did this happen?
Not everything in SA rugby is as negative as you make out (not fighting with you just pointing out my viepoint)
This year we have to beat England at home i agree and its our best chance to do that.
Also to say we will struggle to get to the Quarters? Man we managed the quarters with Straulli as coach FFKS.
21 Mar 2006, 11:15 am
Whether you come close to beating whoever anywhere and do it better than they did in home ground is irrelevant, play each game on its merit. A win by one point is good enough for me, as long as the game was at its highest quality.
21 Mar 2006, 11:38 am
Congrats to the Irish, they are a quality side and with Brian O’Driscoll in the team they are capable of beating anyone.
21 Mar 2006, 11:38 am
WLS – make it through the Quarters is the point FFS! Read the post! Secondly – I was at Stade and I for one took nothing positive away, yes we attempted a comeback, yes we started looking better but then the whistle went and we’d lost – as the saying goes, play to the whistle! Result stands!
21 Mar 2006, 13:29 pm
Of course Weepee i agree, one point , ten points, but the result can often be quite different (ie Bulls game on weekend) to what the scoreline says. I personally dont think we are that far of and i actually think we are in a better posistion than the other sides in preperation for this World Cup. Our results over the last two seasons have been very very good which ever way you look at it. England on the other hand have had a total **** up in results and yet you still rate them better than us? be consistant in your judgment thats all.
Its quite amazing how pre springbok season everyone is always so negativ about them, i suppose your going to go on and say they will lose verything this season, just like everyone said the last two seasons?
all im saying is we should be optomistic because White has proven his track record since he has become bok coach.
21 Mar 2006, 14:01 pm
WLS – I am not stating that England are better than SA, if we played them tommorrow we’d whip their butts. The point is we have 8 months before we play them twice at Twickenham a stadium we havn’t beaten them at since the 90′s. I am stating we don’t travel well, we don’t adapt to the conditions we find ourselves in and we play the same style of Rugby that we do on the Highveld in freezing cold, sea level cities in mid-winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It doesn’t work. As to your claim that the England style of 2003 will win this World Cup in 2007, note they won it in Australia in Spring and 07 is in France in Autumn.
Bottom line, the french play the ball wide, the Kiwis play the ball wide, we don’t!
21 Mar 2006, 14:30 pm
The boks will do well if our guys can break the strangle hold that the English have over the Boks – our guys don’t believe that they can beat them because they have lost so many times in the past 6 years.
As for the time of year, maybe our team needs to tour France this year with games against provincial sides to get used to the conditions … that would be better than playing England twice at Twickers
21 Mar 2006, 21:43 pm
Go Italy moer n klomp pommies !!!
22 Mar 2006, 17:10 pm
Do we still have to qualify for the WC? I thought only top 4 go through… Wouldn’t this be an ideal opportunity to get the “dirt trackers” into the side and really nail the depth of the side? I suppose that it’s not the hardest opposition though…
22 Mar 2006, 17:18 pm
I thought top 8 (ie: all quarter finalists) had automatic qualification
22 Mar 2006, 18:20 pm
I love the way you all write off the Irish even though we’ve come second in the six nations for I think 4 out of 6 years now – have a few GREAT players coming up – like Trimble and Flannery – and are finally getting performances from the likes of Stringer and Horgan instead of ‘just consistent’. If we have an injury free side for the world cup and O’Driscoll and O’Connell have a good tournament… well who knows?
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