Wales have tumbled to their lowest place on the IRB World Rankings since the 2003 World Cup on the back of their series defeat in Argentina.

The Pumas’ triumphs over Gareth Jenkins’ side in Puerto Madryn and Buenos Aires enabled them to overtake Wales and move into eighth place and force Wales into ninth.

Only Italy among the Six Nations sides find themselves beneath Wales.

“I suppose given the team that played out in South America, ninth is a fair reflection of where we are,” said Gareth Davies.

“Having beaten Wales in two Test matches, Argentina would argue strongly that they deserve to be above us in the rankings.

“It would have been interesting to see how they would have coped if they had been without 21 players like we were. But you can’t make excuses.

“It’s like people being off work. You can’t use that to justify your quality of service going down.

“In Wales’ defence, I suspect if more than 20 players had been unavailable four years ago, we would have had to call off the tour.

“The fact, we were able to go ahead with the trip and be very competitive in the first Test with such a young side shows we have made strides in terms of strength in depth.

“When the missing players come back next season, we need to transfer that progress into results on the field and get back up those world rankings.”

IRB World Rankings

1 NEW ZEALAND 93.32
2 FRANCE 87.53
3 SOUTH AFRICA 87.18
4 AUSTRALIA 85.59
5 IRELAND 82.01
6 ENGLAND 79.66
7 SCOTLAND 77.72
8 ARGENTINA 77.49
9 WALES 76.34
10 SAMOA 73.39

The Wallabies will kick-off Wales’ Invesco Perpetual Series in November. Their return to the Millennium Stadium, the scene of their first defeat by Wales in 18 years last autumn, will provide the opener for four tests for Gareth Jenkins’s team.

Invesco Perpetual Series
Millennium Stadium, November 2006

SATURDAY NOV 4
Wales v Australia (KO 2.30pm – BBC Network)

SATURDAY NOV 11
Wales v Pacific Islands (KO 2.30pm – BBC Network, except Scotland)

FRIDAY NOV 17
Wales v Canada (KO 7.30pm – BBC Wales)

SATURDAY NOV 25
Wales v New Zealand (KO 5.00pm – BBC Network)