Wazzup Pilipinas!
The International Rugby Board (IRB) on its official website cited the Philippines as reaching new highs in the IRB World Rankings released on Monday, May 19.
“In the Asian 5 Nations, the Philippines edged Sri Lanka 26-25 in Colombo to climb four places to a new high of 52nd and condemn their hosts to a six-place drop to 48th, the biggest fall of the last seven days.”
This is not the first time the Philippines has been singled out by the IRB since its debut at number 72 on the list in 2012. During that same year, the Philippine Volcanoes’ successive wins in the Asian 5 Nations Division 1 competition propelled the team to a 16-place climb to 56 in a span of just two weeks. This feat earned the Philippines the distinction of being one the biggest climbers for the whole of 2012.
The Philippines will have another chance to improve their ranking when the Volcanoes face South Korea (ranked 26) on Saturday, May 24 in Southern Plains Field, Laguna. The fixture is the final match for both teams, who have both won their games against Sri Lanka and lost versus Hong Kong (ranked 23) and Japan (ranked 13) in the Asian 5 Nations (A5N) 2014 series. The winner of the match will come third in the A5N Premier Division, while the loser will be relegated to Division 1 in 2015, along with Sri Lanka.
The IRB World Rankings are calculated using a 'Points Exchange' system, in which sides take points off each other based on the match result. Whatever one side gains, the other loses.
The exchanges are based on the match result, the relative strength of each team, and the margin of victory, and there is an allowance for home advantage. There are currently 102 nations in the IRB World Rankings.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
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