Women's international rugby union results summary

Although the IRB produce a complex and continually updated ranking for men's international rugby they do not compile any ranking system for the women's game. Rugby statistician Serge Piquet has produced a currently unofficial, but generally accepted, world ranking, but where rankings are referred to by some boards these will normally be the finishing positions in the previous Women's Rugby World Cup (which only takes place every four years and will only include those countries that qualified for the finals).

The IRB's seedings for each World Cup are also influenced by positions in the previous tournament, but not entirely decided by them. The table below shows the final positions for the 2014 tournament and is therefore the closest thing to an "official" IRB ranking:[1]

Rank 2014 position 1  New Zealand 2  England 3  Canada 4  France 5  Ireland 6  Australia 7  Spain 8  United States

Rank 2014 position 9  Wales 10  Italy 11  Samoa 12  Scotland 13  South Africa 14  Netherlands 15  Portugal 16  Kazakhstan

Rugby Europe, formerly known as FIRA-AER, do produce an annual ranking of European nations, based on previous season's Rugby Europe and Six Nations competitions, for use in RE tournaments (though Six Nations teams are often given a higher seeding in tournaments than their ranking might suggest). As these will be based on more recent performances they can contradict the IRB list and also include countries not featuring in the World Cup-based ranking. On the other hand, they obviously only include European nations. Rankings[2] (based on previous season results) appear to be:

Rank	Nation	1997/8	1998/9	1999/0	2000/1	2001/2	2002/3	2003/4	2004/5	2005/6	2006/7	2007/8	2008/9	2009/10	2010/11	2011/12	2012/13
1	England	1	2	1	1	1	2	1	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1
2	France	4	3	2	2	4	1	3	1	1	3	2	4	4	2	2
3	Ireland	8	8	7	8	7	6	5	5	5	5	6	3	3	3	3
4	Italy	6	6	8	7	8	7	8	7	7	7	8	8	9	5	5
5	Wales	7	7	6	5	5	5	4	4	6	2	4	2	2	6	4
6	Scotland	2	1	3	4	2	3	2	3	3	4	5	5	5	4	6
7	Spain	3	4	4	3	3	4	6	6	4	6	6	7	7	7	7
8	Netherlands	5	5	9	9	10	10	9	9	8	8	7	7	8	8	8
9	Sweden	-	-	-	-	9	8	7	8	9	10	10	10	6	9	9
10	Russia	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	11	9	9	9	10	10	10
11	Finland	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	14	14	14	-	11
12	Germany	9	9	-	10	11	9	10	10	10	-	12	11	11	11	-
13	Belgium	-	-	-	-	12	-	-	-	-	11	11	12	12	12	-
14	Romania	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	13	13	13	-	-
15	Luxembourg	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	15	15	15	-	-
16	Norway	-	-	-	-	-	-	11	11	12	12	16	16	16	-	-
17	Serbia	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	17	-	-	-	-
18	Denmark	-	-	-	-	-	-	12	12	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
19	Bosnia-Herzegovina	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	13	-	-	-	-	-	-
NR[3]	Switzerland	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NR[4]	Kazakhstan	-	-	5	6	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Detailed results from a small number of tournaments, especially in Africa and Asia, have never been published. The following table therefore relates to the published tournament results. Note: Almost all of New Zealand's sevens matches - apart from the 2009 World Cup and qualifier and two Hong Kong Sevens - have been played by "Aotearoa Maori" and (before 2000) "New Zealand Wild Ducks". While in some cases they were officially sanctioned by the NZRU, neither were full New Zealand teams, and occasionally included players not eligible to play for New Zealand. As a result, they are not included in the table below. The playing record of these unofficial New Zealand teams is: Played 59, Won 55, Lost 4, 93.22%.

As with rankings for 15-a-side rugby, IRB rankings for Sevens are based on the finishing positions in the previous World Cup. The table below shows the final positions for the 2009 tournament:

2009 World Cup	Nation
1	Australia
2	New Zealand
3=	South Africa
4=	United States
5	England
6	Canada
7=	France
7=	Spain
9	China
10	Brazil
11=	Italy
11=	Russia
13=	Netherlands
13=	Japan
13=	Thailand
13=	Uganda

Rugby Europe also produce an annual ranking of European nations, based on previous season's RE championships which are used for the following season's tournaments. Current rankings are:

Pos	2010	2011
1	Spain	England
2	Netherlands	Spain
3	France	Netherlands
4	Italy	Russia
5	England	France
6	Russia	Portugal
7	Germany	Germany
8	Portugal	Italy
9	Sweden	Sweden
10	Moldova	Moldova
11	Finland	Ukraine
12	Switzerland	Switzerland
13	Belgium	Finland
14	Romania	Romania
15	Latvia	Czech Republic
16	Andorra	Croatia
17	Czech Republic	Austria
18	Austria	Belgium
19	Croatia	Norway
20	Bulgaria	Bulgaria
21	Israel	Latvia
22	Ukraine	Malta
23	Malta	Poland
24	Hungary	Denmark
25	Norway	Andorra
26	Poland	Israel
27	Georgia	Georgia
28	Lithuania	Hungary
29	Denmark	Lithuania
30	Luxembourg	Serbia
31	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Luxembourg
32	Slovenia	Bosnia and Herzegovina
33	Serbia	Slovenia