All Blacks top in World Rugby Ratings

All Blacks top in World Rugby Ratings

The All Blacks, under John Mitchell and Robbie Deans, are top of the world test rugby playing nations for the last 12 months, according to the Massey University ratings.

New Zealand are well ahead of world champions England in the inaugural Massey World Rugby Ratings.

Massey University Professor Hugh Morton processed analysis from test matches over the last 12 months to produce ratings and home advantages for the 20 World Cup countries. These are taken from all test results since June 1 last year – there were no tests in April or May of 2003.

``The 2003 Tri-Nations, the 2003 World Cup and the 2004 Six Nations were the major components. There were 106 games in all,’’ Prof Morton said today.

New Zealand’s 11 consecutive wins achieved in 2003 (June-November) was the third best test winning sequence ever recorded by the All Blacks.

They scored 81 tries in 14 tests in 2003 – a record by any side in one calendar year. Forty of the tries were scored by the team’s wingers.

World ratings:
WORLD RUGBY RATINGS AND HOME ADVANTAGES

1 June 2003 to 14 April 2004

Ranked in rating order

Rank Country Rating Home Adv.
1 New Zealand 98.0 -2.1
2 England 88.0 -0.7
3 South Africa 81.6 -8.2
4 Australia 80.7 15.4
5 France 79.0 4.6
6 Argentina 67.6 14.5
7 Ireland 67.4 18.6
8 Wales 66.2 11.3
9 Samoa 63.0 -7.5
10 Scotland 62.3 9.3
11 Fiji 57.6 -14.8
12 USA 51.4 24.7
13 Italy 49.6 8.6
14 Japan 48.7 7.1
15 Canada 45.8 3.0
16 Tonga 39.8 18.1
17 Georgia 36.3 7.1
18 Romania 29.7 7.1
19 Uruguay 25.3 25.9
20 Namibia 0.0 50.2

Copyright 2004 Word of Mouth Media NZ

© Scoop Media