Ireland are currently 1/2 favourites to beat Argentina in the Rugby World Cup quarter-final.
O’Mahony-less, O’Brien-less, even O’Connell-less, the bookmakers are still expecting Joe Schmidt’s side to make the semis.
But Ireland have been less impressive than their quarter-final opponents according to the ratings given to all 20 teams from the pool stages by The Telegraph.
Ireland finished top of their pool, undefeated in their four games while Argentina lost 26-16 to the All Blacks on 20 September.
But the newspaper still rank Argentina at fourth, compared to Ireland’s fifth, in their rankings.
To be fair, they raise the valid point that the Argentines scored the most points of any side in the tournament thus far (179) which may justify their lofty place.
Japan are rewarded with second place for their valiant performances but the fact that a team that didn’t make the quarter-finals is ranked higher than seven sides that did is a little bit strange. But we love the Japanese so we’re not saying a bad word about them.
Their top five looks like this:
1. Australia
2. Japan
3. New Zealand
4. Argentina
5. Ireland
