South Africa has moved a place up in the latest World Rugby Rankings following their comprehensive 41-7 win over Japan on Friday at Kumagaya Rugby Stadium.
Rassie Erasmus’ charges scaled to position 4, a position above Wales’ who suffered a 19-10 defeat to Ireland in another World Cup warm-up game.
Meanwhile, Ireland’s victory saw them reach the summit of the rankings for the first time, with New Zealand dropping to second.
In the third place is England while Australia, Scotland, France, Fiji and Japan closes the top ten in world rankings.
After South Africa, Namibia is the second best-placed team in Africa, Zimbabwe is third while Kenya is fourth in the continent.
Meanwhile, about the Friday game, Boks were looking for a workout as well as being eager to maintain their good collective form.
Their opponents Japan didn’t pose the physical challenge that the Springboks main World Cup rivals will, hence their willingness to attack out wide.
The Boks rush defence was just about quick enough to keep Japan from exploiting the spaces out wide. Japan were not good in the air although they were had enough chances to test the Springboks.
“We were under pressure from the beginning because we had that tag around our neck — we lost to them back in 2015,” said Erasmus, whose team has been drawn with defending champion New Zealand, Italy, Namibia and Canada in Pool B.
“I’m not trying to say something to please the Japanese people, but the way they respect the players on the field, substitutions being made, kickers going for balls, to the way they even applaud the opposition when they do something well, for me and the players it’s a new experience.”
“When they ask us about 2015, I don’t get upset about that,” he said. “They’re proud of 2015 and they should be proud of 2015. We desperately wanted to turn that around and that’s why we picked our best team tonight. Now we are hoping they will progress through the pool and we can see them again in the playoffs.”
Top 20 in the latest World Rugby rankings:
1. Ireland 89.47
2. New Zealand 89.40
3. England 88.13
4. South Africa 87.34
5. Wales 87.32
6. Australia 84.05
7. Scotland 81.00
8. France 79.72
9. Fiji 77.43
10. Japan 76.70
11. Argentina 76.29
12. Georgia 73.29
13. USA 72.18
14. Italy 72.04
15. Tonga 71.04
16. Samoa 69.08
17. Spain 68.15
18. Romania 66.69
19. Uruguay 65.18
20. Russia 64.81
Others:
23. Namibia 61.01
33. Zimbabwe 51.74
34. Kenya 51.44
