Why has it been so long since NZ played England?

[Puja]

After all, Australia and South Africa have both spent significant time in 2nd place, without being able to achieve this rather simple but telling feat.

Isn’t this just because SA and Oz have the misfortune to play and lose to NZ on a regular basis. England, on the other hand, haven’t played NZ even once in their rise to their current points total. If we (Eng) had spent the past two years in the Championship I don’t think we’d be so close.

QFT.

Although, the flip-side of that is that England haven't had too many chances to improve their ranking points. Last 6N, there were only two games where England could acquire points (and Wales was only because it was an away game) and the same was true from the tour games and two of the AIs. So the majority of our victories this year haven't gained us any ranking points at all.

Puja

[scuzzaman]

After all, Australia and South Africa have both spent significant time in 2nd place, without being able to achieve this rather simple but telling feat.

Isn’t this just because SA and Oz have the misfortune to play and lose to NZ on a regular basis. England, on the other hand, haven’t played NZ even once in their rise to their current points total. If we (Eng) had spent the past two years in the Championship I don’t think we’d be so close.

It's a good point.

Think about this, tho: South Africa could have theoretically achieved the same thing by regularly beating Australia and everyone else, but they didn't. They lost to Japan, a loooong way down the table. Australia could have done it by regularly beating South Africa, and everyone else, but they couldn't do that either.

I'm not trying to talk up England. Although they could beat the All Blacks on a good day, as they've done before, I doubt they're yet able to do it repeatedly or consistently.

But I do believe their performance shows they're clearly the best 2nd-ranked team of recent years. And the rankings reflect that quite accurately, which I believe is a good thing.