48 hours: When it comes to ranking top teams, it just doesn't add up

It is tempting to scoff at rugby's world ranking system having just witnessed an All Black team including the fifth best players in some positions beating the fifth best team in the world.

Not that the rankings are at fault. It's just this. What's the point of a lengthy ranking system that should really stop at four now that England have decided to play like Scotland?

If Ireland are the fifth best team in world rugby, then God help the sixth best which, funnily enough, are England. As for the 10th best, it's probably time to start hanging around with junior teams. Which, of course, is exactly what Samoa are doing these days.

The other thing about the IRB rankings is this: due to its intricacy, the All Blacks were rated 10.58 points ahead of Ireland.

This, quite franky, is ridiculous. Everyone who talks rugby, and basically everyone does talk rugby, believes the All Blacks are at least 19.62 points better than Ireland.

One friend, a rugby aficionado, is adamant the All Blacks are 26.732 points better than O'Driscoll's Dribblers.

Anyway, that's rankings for you, and aren't they a great talking point?

Apart from that, the only other major comment about Saturday night's test is this. My Grey Lynn grass verge has never looked so good after a big rugby game.

It actually looked as though no one had either walked or parked on it, which I suspect may be the case.

My only other comment is this. David Hill - why?

But enough of rugby during soccer's finest hours.

And to be fair to the pointy-balled game, at least their rankings are in roughly the right order, whereas the round-ballers appear to sort theirs out with the help of a Lotto machine and six pints of Ireland's favourite restorer.

Then again, you could probably scoff at most world sports rankings.

Take cricket for example.

There's a battler called Sachin Tendulkar who is ranked as the 19th best batsman in the world.

Yes, there are reasons for this although I don't rightly know what they are.

This puts Tendulkar dangerously close to the 56th ranked Craig McMillan, who is dangerously close to not having any test career at all.

On the bowling side, Shane Bond is flying high with a test ranking of nine.

Yet you just know there's a major chance that at this very moment Bond is laid low and is to a gleeful acupuncturist what a grapefruit half is to an army of pineapple lumps on sticks at a kid's party.

Bondy is, as we repeatedly find out from season to season, a great tonic for the health profession, but not all that helpful to the New Zealand bowling attack.

The baffling part about the cricket ratings is this. You'd have thought Tendulkar would have stashed enough points to hold a place in the top five, the top five for the next forty years that is.

By contrast, logic suggests that Bond would have trouble accumulating enough points to buy a blender with his Fly Buys card.

When it comes to loony world rankings though, it's hard to beat Fifa. On the evidence of this World Cup, the rankings are about as useful as a yellow card in a prison riot.

Fifa itself appears a touch nervous about them, having suspended the rankings during the World Cup.

Most people would suggest they suspend them permanently, in a vat of battery acid.

A case in point? Ghana were exuberant, fluid and majestic in dealing to the Czech Republic 2-0 over the weekend.

What a performance, in which the Czechs were made to look almost as bad as England, although on second thoughts no, they were not remotely that bad. The Czechs are ranked No. 2 in the world. Ghana are ranked 48th.

Hey, we all love an upset. It's just that in this case, it is very difficult to believe that the Ghana we saw in Cologne are 14 places worse than Saudi Arabia, 30 places worse than Japan and - here's the killer - 38 PLACES WORSE THAN ENGLAND.

As for the Netherlands being ranked third - third in world springboard diving maybe, but not in ability.

The Dutch may have given the world "total football", but it is saddening to find that the sum includes parts we could do without. Hopefully, they will trip themselves up in the end.

The Dutch might even rank first in terms of being lucky sods, after a referee ignored a defender who halted an Ivory Coast forward with a karate chop to the nipple line.

It might have been a very different story if the Coasters had converted this penalty they richly deserved for a 1-0 lead in Stuttgart. Even the legendary Johan Cruyff breathed a visible sigh of relief as the Diving Dutch escaped that one.

You can't end a soccer story without referring to England, especially if you don't like happy endings.

As has already been mentioned, they are ranked 10th in the world but this should have an asterix next to it, denoting it is dependant on the state of Wayne Rooney.

If his metatarsal is having an off-day now you could simply swap England with Ghana. Actually, you could swap England with Ghana anyway.

England may be 10th, but they are galaxies away from being 10 out of 10. Not to worry. The World Cup is still a winner. We love you Ghana, we do, we love you Ghana, we do ...

High

The World Cup - footy fever builds.

Low

David Hill's six-minute test debut - whatever next, test jerseys in packs of Weet-Bix perhaps?