Kenya Simbas drop in the latest rugby rankings

Authors:

dennis kibet

February 14, 2017 6:32 PM

The top six rugby nations remained unchanged in the latest rankings.

The Kenya Simbas dropped one position to lie in the 24th spot in the latest rankings released by World Rugby.

The Simbas, whose last assignment was the 34-10 win over Hong Kong last August in Nairobi have 59.28 points and were overhauled by Germany who climbed to 22 position on 60.73 points following a shock 41-38 win over Romania in Rugby Europe Championship action last Saturday.

World Champions New Zealand remains top of the global rankings with 94.78 points.

England and Australia are ranked second and third with 91.02 and 86.35 points respectively.

The British nations of Ireland and Wales round off the top five teams globally.

African nations

South Africa is the highest ranked African nation in sixth place with 81.79 points.

France, Scotland, Argentina and Fiji make up the remaining top 10 positions.

Namibia are the second placed team on the continent, and are ranked 19.

The rest of the African teams are Zimbabwe (37th), Senegal (39th) and Uganda (43rd).

The Simbas have an opportunity to improve on their rankings when they play Uganda in June’s Elgon Cup first leg in Kampala on 10 June before meeting the Cranes in the return fixture a fortnight later.

The clash also marks the start of the Africa Cup where fixtures against Tunisia, Senegal, Zimbabwe and Namibia are also lined up.

The pool draw for the Rugby World Cup 2019 takes place in Kyoto, Japan on 10 May, 2017.

Points exchange system

Both Men's and Women's World Rugby Rankings are calculated using a 'Points Exchange' system, in which sides take points off each other based on the match result. Whatever one side gains, the other loses.

The exchanges are based on the match result, the relative strength of each team, and the margin of victory, and there is an allowance for home advantage.

Points exchanges are doubled during the World Cup Finals to recognise the unique importance of this event, but all other full international matches are treated the same, to be as fair as possible to countries playing a different mix of friendly and competitive matches across the world.

Any match that is not a full international between two member countries does not count at all.

Authors:

dennis kibet