South Africa bounced back to winning ways in The Rugby Championship with a dominant 31-8 victory over Australia on Saturday to return to second place in the latest IRB World Rankings.
IRB
The Springboks surrendered second spot to Australia after their Rugby World Cup 2011 quarter final defeat, but the margin of victory at Loftus Versfeld means they now sit four tenths above the Wallabies.
Despite a third loss in five Rugby Championship matches, an injury-hit Australia still sit just over two rating points above England and France and will be desperate to avoid further falls with the top four teams in the rankings to be kept apart in the RWC 2015 Pool Allocation Draw on 3 December.
New Zealand swept Argentina aside in La Plata to win 54-15 and clinch the title with a round to go, but the result had no impact on their rating given the seven places and 13.09 points they sit above Los Pumas.
The All Blacks’ cushion at the top, though, did increase by one hundredth to 5.82 rating points as a result of South Africa’s five-try victory in Pretoria, Bryan Habana touching down three times in the win.
The biggest movers of the last seven days, though, were Paraguay who climbed two places to 37th on the back of a 29-14 victory over Bermuda in the latest round of RWC 2015 qualifying in the Americas region.
Top 20 in the latest IRB world rankings:
1. New Zealand 92.43
2. South Africa 85.61
3. Australia 85.21
4. England 83.09
5. France 83.03
6. Wales 82.26
7. Ireland 79.85
8. Argentina 79.34
9. Scotland 77.97
10. Samoa 76.23
11. Italy 76.03
12. Tonga 74.79
13. Canada 72.30
14. Fiji 70.60
15. Georgia 67.95
16. Japan 67.93
17. USA 66.61
18. Romania 64.54
19. Russia 62.05
20. Spain 61.63