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Boks closing the gap

By Online Editors
Monday 9 Sep 2013

There may be no positional changes in the latest IRB World Rankings, but South Africa have closed the gap to New Zealand at the top.

This follows their 38-12 victory over Australia in Brisbane in Round Three of The Rugby Championship.

South Africa's first win in Brisbane for more than 40 years has seen them cut New Zealand's cushion from 4.35 rating points to 2.7 ahead of the meeting between the two sides at Eden Park in Auckland this weekend.

New Zealand are also unbeaten in the Rugby Championship, but the 28-13 win over 10th ranked Argentina had no impact on their rating of 91.64, a result of the 15.23 rating points separating the two teams before kick-off in Hamilton.

A third successive defeat in the competition means Australia have seen their advantage over fifth-ranked France reduced to just over two rating points and leaves the Wallabies in danger of slipping another place to equal their lowest position since the rankings were introduced in October 2003.

Top 20 on the IRB World Rankings (last week in brackets):

1(1) New Zealand 91.64

2(2) South Africa 88.94

3(3) England 85.76

4(4) Australia 83.67

5(5) France 81.59

6(6) Wales 81.36

7(7) Samoa 80.42

8(8) Ireland 79.58

9(9) Scotland 76.95

10(10) Argentina 76.41

11(11) Tonga 74.77

12(12) Italy 74.17

13(13) Fiji 73.56

14(14) Canada 72.68

15(15) Japan 71.98

16(16) Georgia 67.66

17(17) Romania 66.18

18(18) United States 64.91

19(19) Russia 61.99

20(20) Spain 60.44

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