{"id":354872,"date":"2023-12-21T21:06:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-21T22:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=354872"},"modified":"2023-12-21T23:01:53","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T23:01:53","slug":"major-kangaroos-surprise-despite-shock-kiwis-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=354872","title":{"rendered":"Major Kangaroos' surprise despite shock Kiwis loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

A\ufeffustralia<\/a> have retained top spot in the International Rugby League (IRL) world rankings, despite suffering its biggest loss in 115 years against New Zealand<\/a> in November.<\/p>\n

The reigning World Cup champions moved into the inaugural Pacific Championships as the top-ranked side, but were pummeled 30-0 in the tournament final against the Kiwis.<\/p>\n

Mal Meninga\ufeff's side were completely humbled on the field<\/a>, but in a surprise development on Thursday night, the IRL have revealed the Kangaroos are still ranked above their Trans-Tasman counterparts.<\/p>\n

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New Zealand – who are now on the hunt for a new coach after Michael Maguire's departure – have held onto the No.2 spot, while England also enjoyed a \ufeffsuccessful 3-0 series win over Tonga and are still sat third on the list.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Samoa and Tonga round out the top-five in the men's game, while the Cook Islands have moved into the top 10 following their efforts in the Pacific Championships.<\/p>\n

According to the official IRL release, points are awarded to teams each time they take the field in a sanctioned international fixture, with the result, winning margin, strength of opponent and the importance of the match all factoring into the points system.<\/p>\n

"In a nine-day period alone we had 23 sanctioned international matches, which was wonderful to see," IRL chairman Troy Grant said in a statement.<\/p>\n

"We have the Pacific Championships up and running in the Southern Hemisphere, with Papua New Guinea as winners of the Pacific Bowl and New Zealand as winners of the Pacific Cup.<\/p>\n

"We also had an historic tour by Tonga to England in the Northern Hemisphere, which was well won by England.<\/p>\n

"The on-field activity is what it is all about, ultimately and I have every confidence that the on-field content will only continue to grow, as will the competitiveness and status of international rugby league."<\/p>\n

\ufeffThe updated rankings for the IRL are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Australia<\/li>\n
  2. New Zealand<\/li>\n
  3. England<\/li>\n
  4. Samoa<\/li>\n
  5. Tonga<\/li>\n
  6. Papua New Guinea<\/li>\n
  7. Fiji<\/li>\n
  8. France<\/li>\n
  9. Lebanon<\/li>\n
  10. Cook Islands\ufeff<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A\ufeffustralia have retained top spot in the International Rugby League (IRL) world rankings, despite suffering its biggest loss in 115 years against New Zealand in […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":344260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=354872"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":354874,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354872\/revisions\/354874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/344260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=354872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=354872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=354872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}