The fiercely competitive Rassie Erasmus will be peeved at the Boks’ ranking falling, despite playing a near-perfect Rugby Championship

Never since the introduction of the official World Rugby men’s rankings 21 years ago has any side made quite such a mockery of the rating system than South Africa right now.

The mighty Springboks, reigning back-to-back World Cup champions, have just clinched the Rugby Championship, and they did so with the authority that befits a world champion outfit. In the process, Rassie Erasmus’s charges enhanced their growing reputation as the indestructible subjugators of world rugby.

And, yet, South Africa are currently only ranked second on the World Rugby Rankings, 0.35 points adrift of Ireland. How bizarre.

Through losing rather unexpectedly – and by the narrow margin of 28-29 – to Argentina in Santiago del Estero on September 21st, the Boks relinquished the number one spot on the rankings that they had held since last year’s World Cup in France. That was the only blemish during an otherwise undisputed Rugby Championship campaign.NotationNot only did they claim the title almost by force, but the South Africans also exhibited their new-found expansive flair under Kiwi attack coach Tony Brown by racking up the most points (188), tries (24), metres made (3,035), passes (889) and line breaks (50), finishing the tournament an astonishing eight championship points clear of runners-up New Zealand.

Still, even though the Boks have now secured four consecutive wins against the All Blacks for the first time in 75 years, lifted the Freedom Cup for the first time in 15 years, and won the Rugby Championship for the first time in five years, Ireland, without even kicking a ball, are currently sitting pretty at the top of the test rankings.

Andy Farrell’s charges set up their rankings conquest three months ago when they upstaged South Africa 25-24 in Durban to draw the short two-test series with the Boks. That victory, Ireland’s fourth from five outings against the Boks in the past seven years, edged them to within less than a point from South Africa in the rankings.

Hence, all it required for the Irish to overtake the Boks was for Erasmus’s team to lose one of their six Rugby Championship tests and not even their subsequent 48-7 walloping of Argentina at Mbombela this past Saturday could

John Robbie, the Dublin-born former Ireland scrumhalf who has been living in South Africa since the early 1980s, is not alone in being bewildered by the situation.

“It’s one of my pet hates, rugby rankings,” says Robbie. “What does it matter? It is a load of nonsense.

“Ireland have been ranked number one three times in the past five years and, yet, have no World Cup trophy to show for it. The Boks on the other hand, have won the Web Ellis Cup a record four times already, of which the last two back-to-back.

“The rankings are just a fake roster