World Rankings: Springboks still a whisker away from No 1!

The opening round of the Rugby World Cup is now behind us, with no major upsets as yet. In the tournament opener, France did well to overcome New Zealand, while the Springboks proved too strong for Scotland.

Ireland powered past Romania, meanwhile, and remain top of the rankings on 91.82 points.

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If the Springboks had beaten Scotland by just a couple more points, they could have leap-frogged into the No 1 spot, but remain just 0.74 points behind.

Ireland and South Africa are closely followed by France and New Zealand.

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THE SPRINGBOKS ARE STILL WELL PLACED IN THE RANKINGS

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber praised his team for opening their Rugby World Cup campaign with an 18-3 victory against Scotland at Stade de Marseille on Sunday, and said it was “the first step in the right direction” for the team.

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The defending champions scored two second half tries to stretch their 6-3 halftime lead to 18-3, and Nienaber was frank about the fact that although it was a hard match, it was a positive start for the defending champions.

“It was a slippery one,” said Nienaber. “Scotland are ranked fifth in the world, and we could see how they pushed against France in their warm-up games, so we knew it would be a grind.

“The historical winning margin between the teams is 15 points and it was the same today. They are a tough team who get stuck in, so it was always going to be a tough battle.

“That said, this is the first step in the right direction. It’s going to be difficult to get out of our pool, so our only focus right now is on Romania.”

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