Boks stay 5th in rankings, but close gap on England

Cape Town - Following their 26-20 win over Scotland in Edinburgh, the Springboks remain fifth in the official World Rugby rankings.

READ: Scotland v Springboks - 5 talking points

However, the Boks gained 1.18 rating points and are now just now just 0.42 of a point behind fourth-placed England, who stuttered to a 35-15 home win over Japan.

Elsewhere, second-placed Ireland gained 1.05 points after upsetting top-ranked New Zealand 16-9 in Dublin.

Ireland's total now stands at 91.17 points - only 1.37 points behind the All Blacks, who celebrated an unbroken nine-year reign as the world's highest-ranked team last Friday.

Third-placed Wales, who thumped Tonga 74-24 in Cardiff, did not get any reward from a rankings perspective for beating their lower-ranked opponents and the same is true of England.

Australia's 26-7 win over Italy in Padova has seen the Wallabies move up to sixth place, above Scotland.

In Lille, France beat Argentina 28-13, but both sides remain unmoved in the rankings, in eighth and ninth place, respectively.

Top 20 in the current World Rugby rankings:

1. New Zealand 92.54
2. Ireland 91.17
3. Wales 86.70
4. England 85.54
5. South Africa 85.12
6. Australia 83.08
7. Scotland 81.57
8. France 78.20
9. Argentina 78.01
10. Fiji 76.40
11. Japan 75.24
12. Tonga 73.84
13. USA 73.66
14. Italy 72.75
15. Georgia 72.60
16. Samoa 67.39
17. Romania 66.91
18. Uruguay 65.37
19. Russia 65.20
20. Spain 63.62

Other:

23. Namibia 59.12
30. Kenya 53.85
40. Zimbabwe 49.28

FULL RANKINGS