The Rugby Historian

October 20, 2025

After a weekend with only two matches, this weekend is full, with five games to keep an eye on, as the Men’s and Women’s Rugby Europe Trophy gets going and the Wallabies face off against Japan in Tokyo. Last weekend, Paraguay booked their tickets to the Final Qualification Tournament in Dubai for a last chance to qualify for the 2027 World Cup, while Luxembourg dispatched Norway to start their Rugby Europe Conference campaign in fine style. The next month will be full of games, offering teams a host of opportunities to move up the rankings.

Men’s Rugby

Rugby Europe Conference

We start this week by looking at the third tier of Rugby Europe competition, the Rugby Europe Conference. The tournament has seen some exciting matches played, with narrow winning margins and a large number of tries scored. The Conference only has one fixture this weekend, with Finland hosting Latvia in a Pool A encounter that promises to be another entertaining affair. The Fins got their campaign off to a comfortable and impressive start, breezing past Estonia 62-0. The Estonians are not affiliated with World Rugby, so that match did not have an effect on the rankings. Nevertheless, the men from Helsinki will look to add to their fine start when Latvia come to town, a team they played in April this year, winning by a single point. The Fins enter the match ranked 75th, while Latvia stands at 63rd, but the gap in world rankings points is small, meaning there is a large scope for change in the rankings. A large win for either team will see sizable jumps in the rankings: Finland winning by 16 points or more will see them surge to 69th, while a win of that magnitude for Latvia will see a rise of five places for them. Based on their recent encounter, a tight game is more likely but will still lead to appreciable shifts in the rankings. A tight win for Finland will see them move up two places, while Latvia would climb five places should they grind out a tight win.

Rugby Europe Trophy

The Rugby Europe Trophy kicks off this weekend, with six teams aiming to gain promotion to the Rugby Europe Championship. The first fixture for this year’s tournament will see Lithuania host last year’s winner, Poland. The Lithuanians will aim to avenge a 13-40 defeat against the same opponents they suffered last year. Lithuania will look to start their campaign in a positive fashion, having only won a single game in last year’s tournament against Luxembourg, who were relegated to the Rugby Europe Conference. As a first opponent, Poland represents the sternest test of the tournament, with the Poles looking to gain promotion to the Championship based on their performance in the 2024/25 and 2025/26 Trophy tournaments. They were unbeaten last year and will fancy their chances to move up a level when this year’s tournament ends.

Lithuania come into the match ranked 55th, while Poland sits in 29th. The two teams are separated by 26 places and 12 ranking points, meaning Poland has little to gain from the match. Lithuania, on the other hand, could jump to 44th if they win handsomely, while a win by a small margin will only lead to them moving up four places to 51st. Any type of win for the Polish, even a draw, would see them stay in 29th.

The second match in the Rugby Europe Trophy sees last year’s runner-up, Sweden, take on a Croatia team which ended fourth. The Swedish side were close to taking top spot in last year’s tournament, narrowly losing 25-29 to Poland in their last match to finish second, three points adrift. They will be gunning for top spot this season, as the best overall performance over the 2024/25 and 2025/26 seasons will ensure promotion to the Championship. Starting strong and extracting maximum points from their clash against Croatia will be crucial in that pursuit, as promotion could eventually hinge on the number of bonus points a team has. The Croatians will be a tough test, as they only lost by 11 points and mounted a spirited comeback last year to reduce the deficit from 12-42 to a final score of 31-42.

They enter the game as the 41st-ranked team in the world, compared to Sweden’s 30th spot, their highest-ever ranking. Not much has changed since their encounter last year, as Croatia was also ranked 41st then, and Sweden only one place below at 30th. As with the Lithuania vs Poland game, the higher-ranked team have nothing to gain from the fixture rankings-wise: if Sweden were to win, by any margin, their ranking will remain unchanged. If Croatia do, however, manage to cause an upset and win, they would jump to 38th with a narrow victory and 37th with a win by more than 15 points. Conversely, should the Swedes suffer such a sizable loss, they would slip all the way down to 36th, significantly narrowing the distance between the two sides on the rankings table.

Men’s international

More than just pride will be at stake when Japan clash with Australia in Tokyo this weekend. As the 2027 World Cup draw comes ever closer, the rankings become more and more important. Due to the expansion from 20 to 24 teams for the latest iteration of the sport’s greatest showpiece, six groups of four will make up the pool stage, instead of four groups of five teams. What this means is that the draw will now take place based on four ‘bands’, with the six highest-ranked teams falling into band 1, the next six falling into band 2 and so on. The six pool stage groups will all consist of one team from each band, meaning that progression into the top band, or Pot 1 during the draw, guarantees a team an easier pool, avoiding the heavyweights such as South Africa, New Zealand or Ireland. This is the goal which Australia will chase over the next month: take that last step from 7th to 6th in the rankings and ensure you have a much easier pool stage on home soil. They briefly crested that hill during the Rugby Championship, but a run of three straight defeats scuppered their chances of winning the tournament and moved them down to 7th, marginally below Argentina. Japan are in a very similar position, albeit in relation to Pot 2, as they currently sit in 13th, less than a point behind Wales. They have only been in 12th for one week this year, after they beat the Welsh in July, and will hope a strong end of the year proves pivotal in their race to avoid two big guns come 2027.

A loss for the Wallabies would be a big setback before they head to Europe for their Autumn Internationals, not only in terms of momentum, but also for their ranking points. Should they lose by a wide margin, the deficit to Argentina would balloon to over three points, making it that bit more difficult to catch up in November and moving them down to 9th. A narrower loss would see them drop only one spot and lose 1.63 ranking points. Japan stands to gain two spots on the rankings if they win by more than 15 points, and, crucially, increase their ranking points by 2.45, drawing them within reach of Italy in 10th. A narrow win still move them up to 11th, while a draw will also result in upward momentum into 12th.

Women’s Rugby

The only women’s game this weekend sees Finland take on Sweden in Vantaa. The 33rd-placed team in the World plays 21st as the Fins head into the match looking to show signs of improvement following a winless campaign last season, which saw them lose to Germany and Belgium by wide margins. Sweden will also look to return to winning ways after losing all their Rugby Championship matches and being relegated from the top tier of Rugby Europe competition last season. They had been part of the top tier since 2023, but had not won a game during that time. This campaign thus serves as a way to bolster confidence and regather momentum to hopefully return to the top table and stay there next season.

A win for Finland would mean a surge up the rankings, with a narrow victory propelling them to 28th and a win by more than 15 driving them up to the heady heights of 26th. Losing by any margin would drop the women from Finland to 34th. Conversely, Sweden stands to gain nothing from any positive result, but would slip all the way down to 24th should they lose such a wide margin. A loss by less than 16 would see them slip to 23rd.