World Rugby Men's Rankings — Historical Archive & Analysis

An interactive, seven-page site exploring the full history of World Rugby's men's rankings since they began in October 2003 — from head-to-head trajectories to who's spent the longest at the top. Built directly from World Rugby's own data, auto-updating weekly, each Monday.

Fair warning: these pages lean on wide tables and dense charts, and don't play nicely on a phone. Best viewed on a desktop or laptop.

Current table

Summary of the latest World Rugby men's rankings, enriched with historical context for each of the Top 20 nations

Rankings Timeline

Compare any two nations' ranking history side by side as a line chart, with Rugby World Cup periods marked, filterable by year range

Rankings Heatmap

A calendar-style week-by-week view of a single nation's ranking history, colour-coded by position, with yearly stats for time in the top 5 and year-on-year trend

Rankings Distribution Analysis

For any nation, a full breakdown of time spent at each ranking position, plus longest unbroken streaks and how a given rank compares to that nation's best/worst ever

No.1 Rankings

A treemap showing which nations have held the top spot and for how long, alongside the longest unbroken reign at No.1 on record

Reign Calendar

Every week since 2003, showing who held No.1 and their career cumulative total at that point, plus a summary table of total weeks, last time at No.1, and full calendar years spent there

Ranking Points Exchanged

Explains how the current rankings determine where each nation can realistically gain or lose ranking points, and why opportunities become scarcer towards the top

World Rugby rankings © World Rugby. Historical archive, analysis and visualisations © Leighton Price.
This website is independent of and not affiliated with World Rugby. Buy Me a Coffee