Wales are now up to sixth, their highest position since they reached fifth place after the Grand Slam triumph of 2005. In contrast, France have slipped to their lowest ever placing since the rankings were introduced in late 2003.
The five game winning streak has seen Wales’s ranking improve four places and 5.95 points since the turn of the year. Wales are the only team in the RBS Six Nations to have improved their ranking in 2008 with Italy having remained in 11th after collecting the wooden spoon and England, France, Ireland and Scotland all suffering falls of one or two places.
England have fluctuated between fourth and fifth over the last two months, but remain the leading northern hemisphere nation behind South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina and Australia with a 3.24 rating point cushion over Grand Slam winners Wales.
The recovery from a slow start to beat Ireland 33-10 at Twickenham resulted in only a small improvement in England’s rating points to 83.36, bringing the World Cup finalists to within a point of Australia above them and leaving Ireland still in their lowest ever position of eighth.
Top 20 on the IRB World Rankings:
(As at March 17th, with the previous week’s ranking in brackets)
| 1(1) | South Africa | 90.81 |
| 2(2) | New Zealand | 89.59 |
| 3(3) | Argentina | 87.42 |
| 4(4) | Australia | 84.20 |
| 5(5) | England | 83.36 |
| 6(7) | Wales | 80.12 |
| 7(6) | France | 79.61 |
| 8(8) | Ireland | 77.18 |
| 9(10) | Fiji | 75.88 |
| 10(9) | Scotland | 74.92 |
11(11) | Italy | 73.57 |
12(12) | Samoa | 71.61 |
13(13) | Tonga | 71.51 |
14(14) | Georgia | 67.83 |
15(15) | Canada | 67.25 |
16(17) | Russia | 67.07 |
17(16) | Romania | 66.17 |
| 18(18) | Japan | 65.35 |
| 19(19) | USA | 64.68 |
| 20(20) | Uruguay | 63.18 |
