Taken during the Quad Series match between Vitality Roses and New Zealand at the Copper Box Arena, London, England on 16th January 2022.
The Vitality Roses remain third in the latest World Rankings.
World Netball (WN) has released the latest rankings which follows the annual update, removing matches from the ranking year 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2019, performed to ensure that the rankings reflect the most current form of the international teams.
From 1 March 2023 the ranking points earned from the matches played from the 1 March 2022 will be weighted at 100%, whilst ranking points earned from matches played in the two prior rating periods (1 July 2019 – 30 June 2020 and 1 July 2020 – 28 February 2022) are now only weighted at 50%.
In response to the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic and the period when international play was suspended, World Netball’s ranking year from 1 July 2020 was extended to 28 February 2022 which is 20 months; you can find more information on that here.
The latest rankings table sees all the top six teams remain the same with Australia in 1st, followed by New Zealand in 2nd , England in 3rd, Jamaica in 4th, South Africa 5th and Malawi in 6th.
The first change in ranking position can be seen at 7th, as Tonga has moved up one place into this position replacing Uganda who move down one place into 8th. This is the only positional change in the top 16 and reflects Tonga’s continuing dominance of the PacificAus Netball Series.
Further down the table, St Vincent & Grenadines, UAE, Malta and Papua New Guinea have all climbed three places, with St Vincent & Grenadines now ranked 17th with their rating increasing by seven points to 69.
Eight teams (Argentina, Canada, Maldives, Thailand, Israel, Chinese Taipei, India & Dominica) have lost their ranking due to not reaching the minimum number of matches (six) required to have a ranking.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the low number of matches played in the period from February 2019 to December 2020, World Netball decided to reduce the minimum number of matches required for a country to have a WN World Ranking from eight to six from the annual update that took place on 1 July 2020.
This measure has helped to prevent some Members from losing their ranking purely because they had (or may have) been prevented from playing due to the COVID-19 restrictions.
In the last 12 months, following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, there has been a marked increase in the number of matches played, with 244 ranking matches taking place in the ranking year from 1 March 2022 – 28 February 2023.
Therefore, following advice from statistician David Kendix, the WN Board has decided, for any WN World Rankings published on or after 1 September 2023, that the minimum number of matches required to have a WN World Ranking will return to eight matches. This move reduces the potential for a single surprise result or for a team’s performances over a very short period of time to have a disproportionate impact and thereby helping to protect the integrity of the WN World Rankings as a whole.
To retain or gain a ranking from 1 September 2023, teams must have played at least eight ranking matches since 1 July 2019.
You can view the full WN World Rankings table here.
