While Georgia and Portugal both won their respective semi-finals against Romania and Spain this weekend to make it through to the grand final of the 2023 Rugby Europe Championship, it was two teams involved in the rankings play-off matches that have moved up the World Rugby Men’s Rankings powered by Capgemini.
Defending champions Georgia and fellow Rugby World Cup 2023 qualifiers Portugal remain as they were, in 12th and 16th place. But the Netherlands and Germany have been rewarded for their victories over Poland and Belgium, which will see them contest the fifth-place final in Amsterdam a week on Sunday.
The Netherlands’ 31-19 win over their closest neighbours resulted in them picking up seven-tenths of a point and their new improved rating of 55.09 points takes them above Switzerland and into 27th place.
Germany are only three places behind them now following a hard-fought 23-18 win against Poland in Gydnia. Their first victory in the Rugby Europe Championship in six years gave them an additional 1.55 points and led to a four-place gain, to 30th in the rankings.
Belgium slipped down a couple of places to 29th after suffering their fourth straight defeat in this season’s competition, while the loss to Germany cost Poland four places. Christian Hitt’s team are now in 33rd place leading into the seventh-place play-off final against the Black Devils.
While Portugal were unable to improve on 16th place, unlike Georgia their overall rating did improve. Os Lobos picked up a fraction under one point for beating Spain 27-10 which gives them a rating of 67.92 points and reduces the deficit between themselves and Tonga, in 15th, to 3.29 points.
Georgia’s score of 75.94 hasn’t altered because they were playing a team with a significantly lower score than them before home weighting was factored in.
The final between Georgia and Portugal will be played a week on Sunday on neutral territory, at the Estadio Nuevo Vivero, Badajoz in Spain. The third-place decider between Spain and Romania will also be played on 19 March.
