How the Rugby Ignite School Rugby Ranking Works.

Rugby Ignite is South Africa's online record of school rugby fixtures and results. Every fixture tracked, every result recorded — the complete, honest picture of school rugby across every province.

Part of that record is a ranking. Here is exactly how it works now that Rugby Ignite runs on Match Pulse.

Two rankings, one set of results

We publish two ratings from the same verified results. Both are out of 100, and every team starts on 50:

• The Master Ranking is one continuous rating across every fixture ever played. It never resets.
• The Season Ranking takes a snapshot of the Master at the start of each season, re-seeds every team, then rates that year on its own — a cleaner read of current form.

A points exchange, not points awarded

It is built on the World Rugby points-exchange method. After each match, points simply move from one team to the other — the winner takes points off the loser. Nothing is created or added to the system, so the table always balances.

How many points move depends on two things:

• Who was expected to win. Beat a higher-rated team and you take more points; beat a weaker one and you take fewer.
• The margin. A comprehensive win moves a little more than a narrow one.

Win percentage, still front and centre

Alongside the rating we show every team’s win percentage — Games Won ÷ Games Played × 100 — so the simple number is always there too.

A record built over time

The Master Ranking rewards consistency. One good run — or one difficult one — won't swing it wildly, because it spans every season on record. That is the difference between a snapshot and a story.

See the live tables on the rankings page.