Wales fall to ninth in world rankings

Wales have fallen into the third band of directly qualified teams for the Rugby World Cup 2015 Pool Allocation Draw after a last-gasp 14-12 loss to Australia at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday.

The Welsh went into their final Test of 2012 ranked seventh but in the knowledge that defeat against Australia would see them fall below Samoa and Argentina to ninth and facing a RWC 2015 pool with two higher ranked teams. Argentina and Samoa both had a rating of 78.71 but when expanded to 15 decimal places the difference between the two was minimal (78.709236088306938 to 78.708853582562098), enabling the Samoans to become the first Pacific Islanders to occupy a top eight spot in the rankings.

The weekend’s other match was just as dramatic as the encounter between Australia and Wales in Cardiff with England ending New Zealand’s 20-Test unbeaten run in style with a 38-21 victory at Twickenham. England were the last team to beat New Zealand in Europe – outside of Rugby World Cups – a decade ago, but the win does not improve their position of fifth as they trailed France by four points going into the match.

For the eighth time since the rankings were introduced in October 2003, New Zealand will end the year as the number one side in the world despite the loss to England, although their cushion over South Africa has now shrunk to 3.14 points.

The IRB World Rankings are being used to rank the 12 directly qualified teams for RWC 2015 into three bands for the draw with the sides ranked one to four in band one - and crucially avoiding each other until the knockout stages - those five to eight in band two and the remaining four in band three.