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MBABANE – Despite being unable to play a competitive match for over two years, the country’s national rugby side, Sizeze, are among few African countries still appearing on the world charts.

Out of the over 50 countries in Africa, only 18 appear on the World Rugby Rankings and they including Eswatini. Out of the 18, Eswatini is 17th ahead of Cameroon. South Africa remain the best rughy side both globally and continentally, as per the ratings released this past Monday. Globally, the rankings show that Eswatini is unmoved on the 102nd spot. Up to 109 rugby nations appear on the charts.

Sizeze were inactive due to challenges headlined by the advent of COVID-19 back in 2019/2020. With things opening up, the national side is expected back in action. They normal play friendly against countries like Lesotho and sometimes regional qualifiers. They have never qualified for any tournament.

Points

According to information sourced from the official World Rugby website, both men’s and women’s world rugby rankings are calculated using a ‘points exchange’ system, in which sides take points off each other based on the match result. Whatever one side gains, the other loses.

The exchanges are based on the match result, the relative strength of each team, and the margin of victory, and there is an allowance for home advantage. “Points exchanges are doubled during the World Cup Finals to recognise the unique importance of this event, but all other full international matches are treated the same, to be as fair as possible to countries playing a different mix of friendly and competitive matches across the world,” reads the criteria.

Any match that is not a full international between two member countries does not count at all. All member countries have a rating, typically between zero and 100. The top side in the world will normally have a rating above 90.