World Rankings: All Blacks gain ground on Boks

NEWS: The All Blacks' third victory over Australia this year saw them cut South Africa’s lead at the top of the World Rugby Men’s Rankings by just over one rating point.

Ian Foster’s side ruthlessly punished Australian mistakes to run out 38-21 winners on Sunday and claim maximum points in the Rugby Championship encounter.

Not even a 28th-minute red card to Jordie Barrett could halt the irrepressible All Blacks, who were down to 14 men before being allowed a replacement 20 minutes later under the global law trials.

Australia drop back below Argentina and into seventh position in the rankings as a result of their latest defeat to the All Blacks, while New Zealand’s victory came with a gain of 1.03 rating points, meaning the gap between themselves and South Africa is now down to 4.17 points.

In Saturday’s North American derby, Canada ended a run of 10 straight losses and beat the USA for the first time in eight years to put themselves in a good position to win the Rugby Americas North (RAN) 1 play-off.

The 34-21 victory in Newfoundland means they have a 13-point lead going into the second leg with the winner, on aggregate score across the two legs, taking on Uruguay for the right to play at Rugby World Cup 2023 as Americas 1.

There will only be four rankings places instead of six between Canada and the USA when they meet again at Infinity Park in Glendale next Saturday after the Eagles dropped one place to 17th, below Uruguay, and Canada moved above Hong Kong and into 21st position after gaining 1.41 rating points.

See World Rankings below: