WORLD RANKINGS: Boks still in top 5
NEWS: Springboks’ narrow 11-12 defeat to England didn’t do any harm to their World Rankings.
Rassie Erasmus’ troops dropped 0.48 rating points but stayed in the fifth position.
While Australia have received a timely boost ahead of Saturday’s match against Wales in Cardiff after moving up the World Rugby Rankings without even kicking a ball.
Scotland’s 21-10 defeat to the same opponents at the same venue cost them 0.41 of a rating point and leaves their overall points tally at 82.61 – a quarter of a point less than the Wallabies – in seventh place.
Wales’ first winning start to a November series for 16 years helped boost their rating to 86.35, still nearly four points shy of an Ireland team that produced a powerful second-half performance to down Italy 54-7 at Soldier Field in Chicago.
Ireland only led 14-7 at the break but a second-half Jordan Larmour hat-trick helped put considerable distance between themselves and the Azzurri.
Neither Ireland nor world number one New Zealand, who defeated Japan 69-31 in Tokyo, picked up any further rating points this weekend given the large gap between themselves and their beaten opponents.
@WorldRugby
