Significant step up in rankings possible for England and Italy
England will move into the top band of seedings for Men’s Rugby World Cup 2027 if they can start the Six Nations with a bang and beat Ireland in Dublin this Saturday.
Steve Borthwick’s team goes into the championship ranked seventh, which would place them in the second band of seeds as things stand when the draw for RWC 2027 takes place on a yet-to-be-announced date between the end of the November internationals and the start of the 2026 Six Nations.
The world’s top six ranked nations will be placed in the top band and, therefore, on paper at least, receive a more favourable draw. England will fall into that category at the end of this weekend if they can manage to win at the Aviva Stadium.
Fifth place in the rankings will be theirs for the taking if they win by more than 15 points – something they have achieved only once at Ireland’s citadel in the Six Nations era. England’s last win in Dubin, full stop, was back in 2019.
If Ireland fail to beat England at the Aviva Stadium they will be replaced in second place in the rankings by New Zealand. A heavy defeat will result in them falling to fourth, unless France slip up at home to Wales, in which case they would drop to third.
A home win for Ireland would not have any impact on their ranking or rating score, meaning South Africa’s two-point advantage at the top of the rankings is safe regardless of what happens in the northern hemisphere this weekend.
Away wins have been a thing in the opening round of the last two Six Nations championships, with the visitors winning all six matches. The odds are stacked against that trend continuing, but Italy will be going all out to beat Scotland at Murrayfield for the first time since 2015 as they look to build on their most successful championship campaign last year.
The Azzurri will leapfrog Fiji and move into ninth with victory but another place is theirs for the taking if they repeat the scoreline from their 2007 win in Edinburgh (37-17). A win by more than 15 points would move Italy up from 10th to eighth, equalling their highest-ever ranking, and it would also put them above Scotland, who would drop to ninth.
Scotland can only gain a maximum of 0.35 rating for beating 10th-ranked Italy at Murrayfield, so cannot improve on sixth, while Wales are in the same boat even if they pull off one of the biggest shocks in recent Six Nations history and do a number on France in the tournament’s opening game at Stade de France on Friday night.
The good news for Wales fans nervous about their side dropping out of the top two bands of seeds (seventh to 12th) is that a defeat in Paris wouldn’t lead to them slipping any further down the rankings. By the same token, a win over Les Bleus won’t see them restored to the world’s top 10 as they have too much ground to make up even with as many as three rating points up for grabs.
This weekend’s four Rugby Europe Championship matches all count towards the rankings but like the Celtic trio of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, none of the fancied home teams – Georgia, Portugal, Spain and Romania – can improve their position as they are playing much lower-ranked opposition in the form of tournament newcomers Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, respectively.
However, there are gains possible for all of their opponents if they can cause an upset, notably Switzerland who would jump to a record high of 25th if they beat defending champions Georgia on their Rugby Europe Championship debut.
The Netherlands stand to gain two places if they can convert last year’s near-miss against Spain into a victory, while a win for Germany away to Romania would result in them climbing back into the world’s top 30. Defeat for Romania will see them slip out of the top 20 for the first time in the history of the rankings.
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I was at an 'off the ball' night in the Olympia, Dublin with guests like Austin Healy, O'Driscoll, Alan Quinlan and others. Healy reckoned Borthwick named his team too early and Ireland's team is a reaction to it. He said nearly all of the line breaks versus England come down Slade's channel. Since Felix Jones left, although England employ one rusher to pressure the likely receiver, the defence outside that is passive.
Prendercast should be ideally placed to coax Slade out and then send a player through the hole. Or else get around and attack the passive defense out wider.
Last year England did well disrupting Ireland's quick ball at the breakdown. Not sure its the right tactic this year as Ireland are very aggressive there and will have a lot more joy at lineout time.
A lot of the attacking under Felix Jones, came off the back of aggressive defense. Last year England's aggressive charging of kicks resulted in a coupld of counter attack tries.
Big if.
England have a lot to prove.
Due to their run of close results against the top sides there is this notion that they are on the verge of clicking but I'm not sure that's the case. Their attack and defence were both woefully disorganised with most of their penetration coming from solo efforts usually by Smith.
England have got players capable of getting stuck into opposition and making life difficult but it's still not at all clear how England plan to attack or defend and after however long Borthwick has been in charge, that's not good. At least when they got to the world cup semi they had an identity, even if it was horrendous to watch, they had a cohesive gameplan and it was somewhat effective... Borthwick knows England need to be able to make use of players like Smith and use their backs to convert territory into tries but it's alien to him and consequently England have no identity anymore.
Until England can find a style which unifies them, they're going to continue to be inconsistent.
"Their attack and defence were both woefully disorganised with most of their penetration coming from solo efforts usually by Smith."
Maybe these things are related. Maybe England should select a 10 capable of organising an attack, rather than just going it alone.
"it's still not at all clear how England plan to attack or defend and after however long Borthwick has been in charge, that's not good"
England were poor in the first three games of the six nations last year, but their attack by the end was very impressive, given they only spent about a month properly developing it. That's an incredible rate of improvement that then immediately stalled: why? The coaching staff didn't change, and most of the personell didn't change. The only major difference was that the best game management 10 England had was replaced with someone who had previously played a bit-part role at 15 or finishing off games at 10 when opposition backlines were already tired.
"Borthwick knows England need to be able to make use of players like Smith and use their backs to convert territory into tries but it's alien to him and consequently England have no identity anymore."
to be fair, England did convert possession into tries in the autumn, the problem was that their attack was so disorganised it led to them (i) getting completely destroyed on the counter attack, and (ii) failing to retain possession, and so spending far too much time on defence - inevitably leading to missed tackles in the fourth quarter.
I'm also not sure what you mean by "players like Smith". Smith is one guy who forces a chaotic attacking style onto the team. Steward, Freeman, Roebuck, Feyi-Waboso, and England's vast plethora of opensides (I know you don't rate the Currys, but there's also Earl, Underhill, Pepper, when they are fit) would probably benefit more from a game built around contestable kicking and defence. Mitchell, Spencer, and JVP are probably better suited to that too. I'm not saying that England shouldn't build an attacking style, I'm just pointing out what I see as an extremely unbalanced framing that treats Marcus Smith as the main character of English rugby. My own personal view is that England should, depending on opposition and game state, switch between the uber-defensive system that they used against SA in the RWC, and a structured possession based attacking system similar to what Ireland have used for the past few years. I think Ford and Fin Smith, as well as almost the entirety of Englands options in the midfield and back three would do well in both of those systems, but Marcus Smith wouldn't.