World Rugby rankings: Springboks and All Blacks lead the way ahead of the Rugby Championship
All Blacks hooker Codie Taylor is tackled by Springboks centre Damian de Allende with the an image of the latest World Rugby rankings.
Ahead of the 2025 Rugby Championship and Pacific Nations Cup, we recap how things stand in the World Rugby rankings.
The rankings this year are more important than usual, with the upcoming draw for the 2027 Rugby World Cup, which will take place after the November internationals.
Australia 2027 is set to feature 24 teams, an increase of four from the previous tournament. The new World Cup format will also feature six pools of four teams, with a round of 16 added prior to the quarter-finals.
The world rankings will determine the seedings for the tournament draw, with Australia and Argentina able to make serious strides to improve their standings during the Rugby Championship with matches against South Africa and New Zealand.
Current rankings
The Springboks and All Blacks head into the tournament as the top two-ranked nations in the world, respectively, while the Wallabies and Los Pumas are in sixth and seventh.
Victories for Australia and Argentina over the former pair wouldn’t result in immediate moves up the standings, but could go a long way in future movements depending on results throughout the tournament and in November.
The results in the World Rugby Pacific Nations Cup will undoubtedly play a role in the make-up of the World Cup, with three qualifying positions up for grabs.
This year’s competition will see six national teams competing – Canada, Fiji, Japan, Samoa, Tonga, and the USA.
Fiji and Japan have already earned their place at Australia 2027, with the remaining top three teams qualifying for the tournament in two years’ time.
The tournament not only affords the opportunity to qualify for the World Cup but also the chance to move up the rankings. Fiji are the top-ranked nation in the competition in ninth position and are followed by Samoa (13), Japan (14), USA (16) and Tonga (19).
Latest World Rugby rankings
As of 09/08/2025
1 South Africa 92.78
2 New Zealand 92.06
3 Ireland 89.83
4 France 87.82
5 England 87.64
6 Australia 82.08
7 Argentina 82.05
8 Scotland 81.57
9 Fiji 80.50
10 Italy 77.77
11 Georgia 74.69
12 Wales 74.05
13 Samoa 72.48
14 Japan 72.29
15 Spain 69.12
16 USA 68.45
17 Uruguay 67.52
18 Portugal 66.44
19 Tonga 65.46
20 Chile 63.83
