Who is on the World Rugby rankings?
Only full members of the World Rugby Federation are included in the ranking list. If you play a match with the national team of a country that is not in the ranking list, you will not get points if you win, nor will you lose points if you lose. Specifically, here in Conference 2 South for the 2022/2023 season, Montenegro and Turkey are not on the ranking list, while Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are. In our case, only the match with Bosnia and Herzegovina will be scored for the ranking list.
You can see the ranking list on the website of the World Rugby Federation.
How are points calculated in the ranking list?
The points system is reduced to the so-called exchange, as much as one team loses, the other wins. Several conditions affect the actual calculation of points, such as the score of the match, the ranking before the match, the difference in the score, as well as whether you are the host or the guest of the match. The system itself is designed to create a current picture of the strength of each national team in official competitions.
Points calculation system
With the formula itself for calculating points, there are some basic rules that must be taken into account, namely:
- The result of the match
- Match status
- The strength of the opponent
- Home ground advantage
For each match played, points are awarded for each of the following match outcomes:
- win or lose by more than 15 points
- win or lose up to 15 points
- draw
Match status
Different games have different importance for national teams, and World Rugby has tried to reflect this by using a weighting system, with the most important game being the Rugby World Cup Final. Points exchange is doubled during the World Cup Finals to recognize the unique importance of this event. World Cup matches are also counted by special calculations. All other international matches are treated in the same way, in order to be as fair as possible to everyone who plays friendly and competitive matches. Matches that do not have full international status do not count.
Home ground advantage
During the calculation, i.e. calculating the points, the hosts are handicapped because they are treated as if they are three rating points better than their current rating. This results in the home team getting fewer points for a win and losing more points for a loss. Therefore, in the ideal case, any advantage that a team has by playing in front of the home crowd is nullified. Which does not necessarily mean if the home team has a drastic point deficit compared to the visiting team.
How are the points calculated?
Given that we will gain or lose points in the match with Bosnia and Herzegovina, we will calculate the match that will be played on the 29th. of April 2023 . Until that game, the amount of points between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina will not change, unless one of the teams plays a friendly match that would be scored, but we will not take that into account.
Bosnia and Herzegovina currently has 31.93 points. Since she is the host, we will add three more points to the calculation, that is, Bosnia will have 34.93 points in our calculation. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina is the host team, we will name it as team A in the formula.
Serbia has 35.20 points. Considering that we are visiting, we do not have any addition to the current points. Serbia is a guest and we will list it as team B in the formula.
If there is a tie, the difference A-B=D is calculated, we will mark that difference with D. That is, D would be 35.20-34-93=0.27. D cannot be a negative number.
There are 5 possible scenarios when calculating points.
1. Bosnia and Herzegovina wins with a margin of more than 15 points
We apply the formula: (10+B-A)x0.15
That is, if you would insert the parameters: (10+35.20-34.93)x0.15=1.5405, that is, we can round to 1.54.
If Bosnia and Herzegovina wins by a greater margin of 15 points, they will advance 1.54 points in the ranking, while Serbia will fall back the same number of points.
2. Bosnia and Herzegovina wins with a smaller margin of 15 points
We apply the formula: (10+B-A)x0.1
That is, if you would insert the parameters: (10+35.20-34.93)x0.1=1.027, that is, we can round to 1.03.
If Bosnia and Herzegovina wins by a smaller margin of 15 points, they will advance 1.03 points in the ranking, while Serbia will drop the same number of points.
3. Draw
That is, if you would insert the parameters: 0.27*0.1= 0.027, that is, we can round to 0.03.
If there is a draw, both teams will receive 0.03 points each.
4. Serbia wins with a margin of more than 15 points
We apply the formula: (10+A-B)x0.15
That is, if you would insert the parameters: (10+34.93-35.20)x0.15=1.4595 basically, we can round to 1.46.
If Serbia wins by a greater margin than 15 points, it will advance 1.46 points in the ranking, while Bosnia and Herzegovina will fall back by the same number of points.
5. Serbia wins with a smaller margin of 15 points
We apply the formula: (10+A-B)x0.1
That is, if you would insert the parameters: (10+34.93-35.20)x0.1=0.973 basically, we can round to 0.97.
If Serbia wins by a smaller margin of 15 points, it will advance by 0.97 points in the ranking, while Bosnia and Herzegovina will fall back by the same number of points.
Where Serbia can be in the ranking after the end of the 2022/2023 season
Serbia is currently ranked 79th. at world rugby rang list. As we have already mentioned, in this season only the match with Bosnia and Herzegovina will be scored. We have already calculated all possibilities, all that remains is to transfer the calculations to the existing table and see what can happen.
We have 5 possible scenarios. If we happen to win with a difference of more than 15 points, we add 1.46 points to 35.20 points, which would be 36.66 points in total. If they were based on the current table, they would climb to 72nd. .
Уколико победимо разликом мањом од 15 поена, добијамо 0.97 бодова, односно када би на 35.20 додали 0.97 добили би 36.17 бодова, што би било довољно за 76 .
If it was a tie, they would get 0.03 points, that is, they would have 35.23 points, which would leave us in the same place as before.
If they lost by less than 15 points, they would lose 1.03 points, that is, if they subtracted 1.03 from 35.20, they would get 34.17 points, which would be a drop to 83 .
If they lost by more than 15 points, they would lose 1.54 points, that is, when we subtract 1.54 from 35.20, they would get 33.66 points, which would be a drop to 84 .
If we make a result in Bosnia and Herzegovina like in the last match, we can hope to advance to 72. positions in the ranking list. Which would be a great result at the end of this season. After two seasons when the groups are changed, it is quite certain that if we achieve all the victories, we can enter the top 70 in the world. And later, stronger opponents come to us, where we could advance even more with possible victories. We have a good youth team, quality players abroad, so when we are complete we can do a lot. Our opinion is that we have the quality to enter the top 50 in the world, we just need to prove it on the pitch.
