World Rugby Women's Rankings preview

World Rugby has published the ranking permutations for this weekend's Pacific Four Series 2025 and Rugby Europe Women's Conference 2024-25 matches.

Permutation highlights:

• New Zealand cannot improve on third place as they can only make minimal gains with victory over Australia in their Pacific Four Series 2025 meeting in Newcastle.
• A victory by more than 15 points is only worth 0.37 rating points and would leave the Black Ferns still 0.30 points adrift of Canada in second.
• The Black Ferns will remain third even if they suffer an historic loss to Australia, although their cushion over France below could shrink to a mere 0.09 rating points.
• Australia will equal their highest-ever position of fifth if they avoid defeat, climbing above Ireland to regain the place they lost in March.
• The Wallaroos can go no higher than fifth with a first victory over New Zealand at the 28th attempt as even a win by more than 15 points would see them trail France by 5.19 points.
• The weekend’s other match, in the Rugby Europe Women’s Conference 2024-25, involves teams next to each other in the rankings in Latvia and Norway.
• Whoever emerges victorious will become the higher-ranked of the two nations when the rankings update at 12 noon on Monday.
• The sides will swap places if Norway secure a narrow win, while victory by more than 15 points would lift the hosts two places to 40th with Czechia also slipping a place.

Match officials:

• Clara Munarini (Italy) makes her Pacific Four Series debut in Newcastle with Australia v New Zealand. It will be the first time she referees the Black Ferns, while Australia won two of their three tests in 2024 with the Italian in the middle.