The World Rankings are always a source of debate for fans over who the best teams across the globe are and in what order they are ranked.
This week is no different after Ireland moved into the top spot without playing a minute of rugby at the weekend, which was all thanks to a memorable Los Pumas win over former world number one side the Springboks.
Naturally, a lot of the rugby public was confused as to how a team that has not played can climb the rankings so here is your explainer on how everything works.
What are the World Rankings?
The World Rankings are a points exchange system meaning that teams take points off each other: the winner will gain as many points as the loser will forfeit.
The points system is 0-100 between which teams are ranked, typically the top side in the world will be between 90-100. The highest points total of all-time came from the legendary All Blacks side that won back-to-back Rugby World Cups with their total reaching a whopping 96.57. The 2024 Springboks reached the second highest with 94.86 in July.
All international matches are weighted the same with the exception of the World Cup finals where points are doubled due to the significance of the event.
Springboks surrender top spot in the world rankings, Australia drop to joint all-time low
Factors influencing the points exchange
There are a number of considerations made in the system when determining the amount of points being exchanged:
Rankings before the match: If a higher-ranked team beats a lower-ranked team fewer points or in some cases, no points are traded because the result is expected. However, if a lower-ranked team beats the higher-ranked team it is seen as an upset and as a result more points are exchanged. The greater the difference in rankings the greater the influence of this aspect.
Home advantage: Playing at home has obvious benefits so the system ‘handicaps’ the hosts by adding three points to their rankings accounting for the relative advantage.
Margin of victory: If a game is won by more than 15 points then the points exchanged is multiplied by 1.5
So how did Ireland go to number one?
As you may have worked out by reading through this explainer, there is often more to lose than to win for higher-ranked sides and that was the case for the Springboks in round five of the Rugby Championship.
South Africa went into the Test in Santiago on top of the rankings with a tally of 93.37 while Argentina were in seventh with 82.49 which is a fairly significant difference, meaning there was a decent portion of points being exchanged.
Los Pumas would go on to claim a memorable 29-28 win in front of their home fans meaning the Springboks had to forfeit 1.6 points. This took the world champions tally to 91.77 which was only good enough for second place behind Ireland. Argentina on the other hand climbed into the sixth spot with 84.30.