Malta maintained their surge up the IRB World Rankings after their 14-10 European Nations Cup home win over Lithuania last weekend lifted them to 42nd, their best-ever position in the world list.

Before their opening two matches in this season’s tournament, Damien Neill’s men were ranked 53rd.

But, an impressive 28-0 win over Latvia in Riga and Saturday’s comeback victory at the Hibs Stadium has catapulted the team into the top 45 with 47.93 points, just one behind Paraguay (41st).

The Maltese had to fight hard to see off Lithuania who held a 10-0 lead at the break. Malta hit back, scoring 14 unanswered points in the second half thanks to James O’Brien.

The Waterloo fullback converted two penalty kicks, fired in a drop goal before completing a fine individual performance by scoring a marvellous try from a great pass by Rob Holloway.

Thanks to this win, Malta, now third in the table, are all but assured of retaining their Division 2A status.

For Lithuania, Saturday’s defeat didn’t affect their position in the world list as they are still ranked 39th.

Croatia, also in Division 2A, recovered from an opening-day loss against Sweden to defeat Latvia 34-8 in Split on Saturday.

The win propelled the Croatians into the top 50 of the IRB rankings while Latvia dropped one place to 69th.

Top 10 sides
1. New Zealand 91.43; 2. Australia 87.42; 3. France 84.70; 4. South Africa 84.34; 5. England 81.58; 6. Ireland 80.65; 7. Argentina 80.28; 8. Wales 80.18; 9. Tonga 76.63; 10. Scotland 76.20.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.