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Malta ranks 55th place in IRB rankings
By MM Sports
May 13, 2008 - 2:51:06 PM
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The Maltese national rugby
team has dropped two places to 55th in the latest weekly International
Rugby Board Rankings. This comes following last weekends 29-16 defeat
to the higher ranked Polish side. Poland were the highest-ranked side
to climb in the IRB World Rankings this week, their convincing away
victory against Malta in the European Nations Cup taking them up three
places to 33. Latvia, however, were the biggest climbers in the world
list, which is published every Monday on irb.com.
The Latvians' 20-8 win against higher-ranked Croatia in Riga helped
them up four places to 46. Norway also rose, by three places, to 80th
following their win in the ENC against Bulgaria.
Bosnia & Herzegovina moved off the bottom of the IRB World
Rankings list on Monday after their 22-17 victory over Slovenia, a side
which had been ranked 36 places higher then them at 59. The Bosnians
climbed one place to 94th, leaving Finland with the dubious honour of
propping up the table. By far the biggest fallers of the week were
Slovenia, whose loss to the Bosnians plummetted them down nine places
to 68.
Spain's hard-fought victory against World Cup veterans Portugal
affected neither side's ranking as the Spanish were already ranked one
place higher than the Portuguese at 21 in the world. Both sides' rating
points did change, however, as a result of the 21-17 home victory in
Madrid.
Outside Europe neither of the two away wins in the Asian 5 Nations
- Japan's 82-6 victory over Kazakhstan or Korea's 43-20 win against the
Arabian Gulf - affected the World Rankings. In Africa, however,
Cameroon's Rugby World Cup qualifying victory against Nigeria saw them
up three places to 76.
World champions South Africa retained top spot, followed by New
Zealand second, Argentina third, Australia forth and England fifth.
Malta
will be looking to gain some ground in next weeks rankings should they
enjoy a convincing win against Andorra currently ranked 62nd.
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May 13, 2008 - 5:04:00 PM CET
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