Teams to look out for

Just my personal opinion... The top squad in world rugby is New Zealand, without a doubt Below them you have Australia, South Africa and England - on their day, they are all able to beat each other. NZ are another level up, occasionally they'll run New Zealand close, but wins are still cause for major celebration. Below that you have France, Wales, Ireland and Argentina - every so often these squads will put in a superb performance against the elite teams, but they have a habit of swinging between being very good and very bad. For these teams, home advantage is critical, whereas the likes of Aus and SA don't care where they play. Below this you've got the Pacific Islands teams - Samoa, Fiji and Tonga. These sides play very physical, flashy rugby, but they like to show off as well and often have a very leaky defence as a result - games against them tend to be either extremely close thrillers, or the Islander teams get thrashed by 30-40 points. I'd also put Italy in this group, as although they compete in the Six Nations, wins are still rare for them, and they've only just joined the Magners League this season, so improvement should be seen over the next few years. Below the Pacific teams is where you start to drop into more amateur and semi-pro rugby. The teams at this level are really only looking for regional titles and World Cup qualification as their big targets, as they really get exposed when playing world-class teams. The top sides down here are: Europe: Romania, Russia, Georgia, Portugal Americas: USA, Canada, Uruguay Africa: Nobody really stands out, although Namibia have always been fairly strong, and Kenya are improving. Asia: Japan, South Korea, Kazakhstan (especially on the women's side). Hope this helps.

I don't know about professional rugby, but I know that my cousin Karen plays on a pretty good Rugby team here in Canada, so that's about it. LOL I wish she was on a professional team, then I'd point you in the direction of that one. LOL That's about all I know about Rugby. haha