Americas Rankings – March 20 2016

With there having been no international competition in the Americas this weekend there are no changes to the Americas Rankings this week. As of March 20 2016 Rugby World Cup 2015 competitors Argentina, USA, Canada and Uruguay remain ranked one through four in that order.

There have, nonetheless, been alterations to the World Rankings due to international competition in Europe seeing rankings points on the line in the Six Nations and European Nations Cups (ENC) competitions.

England’s away win over France sees the Six Nations Grand Slam winners overtaking Wales in the World Rankings. As such England is now the top-ranked European, occupying 4th in the world on 83,98 rankings points. Wales are 5th with 83,10 ahead of Argentina in 6th with a ranking of 82,59.

Completing the world’s top 10 are Ireland, France, Scotland and Japan in that order. Crucial to all is to be ranked no lower than 8th as the draw for Rugby World Cup 2019 will be made in December of this year based on the rankings at the time.

Three bands will be used to rank the 12th automatic qualifiers from England 2015. They are Argentina, Australia, England, France, Georgia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa and Wales. Those ranked 1-4 will form Band 1, 5-8 Band 2 and 9-12 Band 3.

The danger is real and well documented. With Wales being ranked outside of the Top 8 in December 2012 the consequence was Rugby World Cup 2015 got the Pool of Death, a group featuring Australia, England and Wales. It could be repeated and get worse as it did with Fiji joining them.

To complicate matters further the pre-qualified Italy is ranked 14th at the present point in time. Neither Fiji nor Tonga earned automatic qualification but both are ahead of the Italians. Also ahead are Georgia who edged further ahead of Tonga by defeating Romania on Saturday in front of a crowd of 52,000 in Tbilisi.

The loss for the Romanians sees the USA and Canada both gaining slight ground. The North Americans retain their world rankings of 17th and 18th ahead of Russia whose win in Lisbon over Portugal sees Uruguay dropping to 20th. It makes Uruguay the 19th ranked team from England 2019, Namibia being the 20th and ranked 21st in the world.

Rankings will be on the line in three days time when, on March 23, Trinidad & Tobago play host to Jamaica in a Rugby World Cup 2019 qualifying fixture. Trinidad & Tobago enter the fixture ranked 8th in the Americas, a much higher position than that of Jamaica who occupy 16th spot.