Namibia are the biggest climbers in the latest IRB World Rankings with a two place climb to 23rd after a 12-9 victory over Portugal, the perfect warm up for the first leg of their vital Rugby World Cup qualifiers with Tunisia this weekend.
The African side - bidding to join South Africa, Fiji, Wales and Samoa in Pool D at RWC 2011 by defeating Tunisia in the Africa Cup final - edged the tight affair in Lisbon and as a result climb above Chile and Korea.
Portugal themselves slide one place to 21st, allowing Uruguay - who face USA in the final Americas play-off for RWC 2011 over the next two weekends - to return to the top 20 nations in the world.
Only one other nation have risen in the IRB World Rankings in Wales, despite suffering a 21st consecutive loss to New Zealand, this time by a 19-12 margin at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
Wales' rating has slipped by just under four tenths on the back of this defeat, but they still climb one place to seventh, swapping places with England who drop almost a full rating point after losing 18-9 to Australia at Twickenham.
New Zealand and Australia remain second and third respectively after kicking off their European tour with victories, the All Blacks now just over a point adrift of number on side South Africa and five above the Wallabies.
Biggest casualty
Portugal and England were not the only side to slide with defeats of the weekend with Sweden the biggest fallers of all with a five place drop to 51st after losing 25-23 to Malta in their European Nations Cup Division 2B encounter in Paola.
Sweden's slide means that Zimbabwe, Madagascar, China, Papua New Guinea and Chinese Taipei all benefit with a one place climb. Malta remain 54th despite the victory, albeit now closer to Sri Lanka and Singapore above them.
The other Division 2B encounter did not have impact on the IRB World Rankings despite the Netherlands romping to a 57-3 defeat of Latvia on home soil in Amsterdam. This is because of the 24 places and 9.26 points separating the teams.
The victory maintains the Netherlands unbeaten record in the European Nations Cup and takes them back to the top of the standings, leaving Latvia bottom and still searching for their first victory of the 2008-10 campaign.
Bosnia & Herzegovina ran out 16-5 winners away in Azerbaijan, but the Division 3D match did not have any effect on the rankings as their hosts are not yet a full Member Union of the International Rugby Board and therefore not ranked.
The weekend's other match pitted the bottom two sides in the rankings against each other, with Luxembourg edging their visitors Finland 9-3. This win sees Luxembourg edge three tenths closer to Vanuatu in 93rd and leaves Finland 4.6 points adrift.
