Springboks top World Rugby rankings at 95,65% after All Blacks series win

South Africa won the series against the All Blacks 3-1, sealed it in Baltimore, and did it in front of the biggest crowd ever to watch a rugby union match in the United States.

The victory was discussed on eNCA’s Beyond Game Day on 18 September, where the channel’s sports editor and its host looked back on the month of rugby and asked a bigger question. Are the Springboks becoming too good for the rest of the game?

The numbers say something close to it. The Springboks sit at 95,65 percent in the World Rugby rankings, the highest any team has reached since the rankings began. New Zealand is on 92 something, and the next best nation is far behind at 88. The gap between first and second is now wider than the gap between second and everybody else.

The series was closer than the scoreline

For all that, the four matches were a contest. Across the whole series South Africa scored 121 points and New Zealand 111, a difference of ten points over four games. The All Blacks actually outscored South Africa on tries.

The hosts broke two hoodoos along the way. South Africa had not beaten New Zealand at Ellis Park in the recent past, and had never beaten them at FNB Stadium, where the two sides had met twice before, in 2010 and 2012, and lost both. They won at both grounds this time. Then they went to Baltimore, where what many expected to be an exhibition turned into some of the best rugby played in years.

One former All Black, Moana, said after that match that this Springbok squad is better than the one that won the 2023 World Cup.

The team is still growing

The frightening part, as the broadcast put it, is that this side has not yet clicked into its full package. Coach Rassie Erasmus has only now been able to pick more or less the same team for three weekends in a row. Players who did not feature at all in the series, among them Pieter-Steph du Toit and Franco Mostert, are still to come back. A player like Sacha came in, raised his hand and showed what he can do.

The All Blacks, meanwhile, are in transition. They lost the series but they are not a poor team. They scored excellent tries when they got the ball wide, and they could have beaten almost anyone else in the world. Their problem is structural. Their administrators cut South African franchises out of Super Rugby, a decision that former players including Andrew Mehrtens defended at the time and that the broadcast argued was the biggest mistake New Zealand rugby made.

South Africa went north instead, into the United Rugby Championship and Europe, and it has suited the national side perfectly. South African players now face test-match rugby almost every week, and the relaxed selection rules mean a player can earn his living in Japan or Europe and still come back for the Springboks. The broadcast made the point that this also protects the players’ bodies, because they play a quarter of the matches their northern hemisphere counterparts do.

What the draw has done

Now the attention turns to the World Cup, and to a draw that has produced a problem. If New Zealand beats Australia, South Africa and New Zealand will meet in the quarterfinal. The number one and number two teams in the world, seeded into the same side of the bracket.

The broadcast was blunt about it. Nobody wants the two best teams in the world meeting before the final, and the consequence is that Australian rugby now carries an unusual burden. Australia, under Joe Schmidt, has improved, but a quarterfinal win over the All Blacks is a lot to ask.

South Africa’s next assignment is the Nations Championship, and Erasmus is expected to tinker rather than rebuild. Momentum matters, and so do psychological blows. Then everything builds towards the World Cup in Australia, where South Africa will be in Perth this time next year.

Source: eNCA (YouTube), Beyond Game Day, Are The Springboks Becoming Too Good For World Rugby?, 18 September 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBuVro14k_8