Ranking slip and more...
South Africa's emphatic win over Australia caused a stir on the IRB World rankings.
The Springboks bounced back to winning ways in Rugby Championship with a dominant 31-8 victory over the Wallabies to return to second place in the latest IRB World Rankings.
The Springboks surrendered second spot to Australia after their World Cup quarterfinal defeat last year, but the margin of victory at Loftus Versfeld means they now sit four tenths of a point above the Wallabies.
In fact the IRB found the Wallabies so shocking that they decided to remove them from the rankings altogether (see picture above), and did not award a third place at all.
However, once the blooper is restored the injury-hit Australia will still sit in third – 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 December 3.
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.
* Quote of the Week:
Andrew 'Tank' Lanning, fired by a Pay-TV station last year for sending out a tweet during a closed workshop regarding the utilisation of players during a World Cup year, made a re-appearance as an analyst at the weekend and put his foot straight back in it.
Lanning, speaking to the Free State Under-21 captain after a match, said: "32-all, is that what you wanted?"
Yes Tank teams always play to lose or draw, never to win!!!
* Thought for the day:
It seems putting up a Test against the All Blacks at Soccer City is not as popular as the South African Rugby Union had hoped, as the Soweto residents are not exactly rushing to get their hands on 'discounted' tickets.
South Africa host New Zealand in the 95,000-seater World Cup soccer stadium in the last round of the Rugby Championship and – like the Pretoria Test against Australia at the weekend – the game will not be a sell-out.
Tickets costing R250 for the Boks versus All Blacks at Soccer City have now gone out on general sale.
SARU revealed that almost 7,000 tickets at R250 were released exclusively through Soweto outlets – but have now been put on general sale. This is in addition to tickets available in premium seats at R600 and a number remaining at R450.
