Rugby | World Rugby Women's Rankings preview 6-7 September 2024

Written on 06 September 2024. Posted in SA Rugby.

World Rugby has published the permutations for the women's rankings this week in its preview.

World Rugby has published the ranking permutations for the two WXV 2024 warm-up matches in Europe this weekend.

Permutation highlights:

England cannot improve their rating with victory over France due to the 9.63 points difference between the teams before home weighting is factored in.
The Red Roses will remain on top of the rankings even if they suffer a heavy defeat, although their advantage could be slashed from 7.58 rating points to 3.63 points.
This would require France to win by more than 15 points, a scenario that would lift Les Bleues above Canada and New Zealand into second – a position they occupied for a solitary week in July 2016.
A smaller margin of victory would still be enough to lift France above Canada into third.
Wales will become the higher ranked of the two nations if they beat hosts Scotland with the two sides potentially swapping positions with sixth place matching Wales’ highest-ever position from earlier this year.
Defeat by more than 15 points will see Scotland drop an extra place to ninth with Italy the beneficiaries.
A victorious Scotland cannot improve on their current position of sixth as they will gain a maximum of 0.79 points, leaving them trailing Australia above by 1.22 points.

Match officials:

Aurélie Groizeleau (France) will take charge of Scotland v Wales for the first time, having been an assistant referee when the sides met in 2021. Scotland have lost five of their seven matches with Groizeleau in the middle, while Wales won for the first time in their last outing, 52-20 against Spain in their WXV play-off in June.
Kat Roche (USA) will referee England v France for the first time with both teams yet to lose with the American in the middle. Roche, who took charge of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 women's gold medal match between New Zealand and Canada in July, has refereed both teams in 2024 with England victorious against Wales and France against Ireland in the Guinness Women's Six Nations.