All Blacks race further ahead
WORLD RANKINGS: New Zealand stretched their lead at the top of the World Rankings.
New Zealand and South Africa both recovered from narrow first-half deficits to beat Australia and Argentina respectively and get their Rugby Championship campaigns off to a winning start.
A strong second-half performance brought the All Blacks five tries in Sydney and a 38-13 victory after they had trailed 6-5 at half-time.
The win was worth just over half a rating point and extends New Zealand’s cushion over Ireland at the top of the world rankings to 4.4 points.
South Africa recovered from the setback of conceding first-half tries to Nicolas Sanchez and Pablo Matera to ease to a 34-21 win over Argentina at Kings Park in Durban.
South Africa did not receive any rating gain for the victory, due to the large points differential between themselves and Argentina, with the sides remaining in fifth and 10th place respectively.
Also on Saturday, Namibia confirmed their place at World Cup 2019 in Pool B – alongside New Zealand, South Africa, Italy and the repechage winner – after retaining the Africa Gold Cup with an emphatic 53-28 victory over Kenya.
The result lifts the Welwitschias above Canada in the rankings to 22nd place, and they are now less than half a point away from catching Hong Kong in 21st.
Kenya remain in 28th place despite the loss of nearly six-tenths of a point.
Kenya will now play Canada, Hong Kong and Germany for the right to claim the 20th and final ticket to Japan at the RWC 2019 repechage tournament in November.
Source: @WorldRugby
