Six teams have moved up the World Rugby Rankings following the latest round of matches in the Rugby Europe Championship and Americas Rugby Championship, while, for the likes of USA and Romania, defeats saw them lose ground.

It may not have been a champagne performance from Brazil, as they ground out a 15-10 win at home to Chile in the penultimate round of the Americas Rugby Championship 2019, but the third of a rating point gained in victory was enough to lift them above Hong Kong and into a record-equalling 25th position.

Elsewhere in the competition, Uruguay won for the first time on US soil, defeating the Eagles in Seattle 32-25 to move up to 16th, one place below their beaten opponents who drop two to 15th. Italy and Tonga benefited from the Eagles' loss with a one-place rise.

The other game between newly-crowned Americas Rugby Championshipchampions Argentina XV and Canada, a 39-23 win for the South American side, did not count towards the rankings.

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Spain are higher than they have been for nearly a year after a 21-18 win against Romania in the Rugby Europe Championship in front of a near 7,000-strong crowd in Madrid lifted them up to 19th place. Los Leones are now the highest ranked of the two teams with Romania at an all-time low of 20th.

The Oaks looked good for victory when they raced into a 13-0 lead following a try from winger Ionut Dumitru and eight points from the boot of Florin Vlaicu, but converted tries either side of half-time from Fernando Lopez and Alvar Gimeno edged the home side in front.

No further points were added until the 65th minute, despite each side losing a man to the sin-bin, at which point number eight Pierre Barthere crashed over for another try turned into seven points by the conversion. Vladut Zaharia pulled five points back for Romania with 11 minutes to go but Spain held on.

Russia also moved up one place, to 18th, after withstanding a German fight-back in Heidelberg to win 26-18. The Bears had the bonus point in the bag with half an hour to play as they established a commanding 26-6 lead following tries from German Davydov, Tagir Gadzhiev, Evgeniii Matveev and Anton Sychev before the home side rallied to score late tries through Marcel Coetzee and Felix Lammers.

No rating points were awarded to Georgia for their 46-6 win over Belgium in Brussels, due to the rating points differential between the sides before kick-off.

The Lelos scored four tries in each half to achieve their first bonus-point win of the campaign, and they now have a three-point lead over Russia at the top of the Rugby Europe Championship standings with two rounds to play.

Forwards Guram Gogichashvili, Giorgi Nemadze and Giorgi Tsutskiridze all crossed before Miriam Modebadze brought up the bonus point with their fourth with 33 minutes gone. The score remained at 22-3 for 22 minutes of the second half until Zurabi Dzneladze eventually broke the deadlock. Tsutskiridze got his second not long after and there was still time for replacement Beka Gigashvili and Giorgi Tkhilaishvili to add their names to the scoresheet.

Photo: Fotojump