Oceania on the up in 2004

In the main, Oceania teams have moved up the world rankings significantly, thanks largly to the island nations going through an extra round of world cup qualifying matches and achieving some extraordinary results.

The region's best performer since December has been the Solomon Islands, moving up from 156th to 126th in the past nine months. Australia, the regional leader, has improved 24 places since December to 58th although they have lost groud in recent times and are expected to lose further ground thanks to the glut of world cup qualifiers taking place.

Only three nations have lost ground since December with Samoa dropping one place to 177th, Tonga dropping two places to 182nd and American Samoa dropping to 203rd, the third lowest position in the world slightly ahead of Guam and Montserrat.

New Zealand, after a poor world cup showing, will be disappointed to have only gained two places since December.

Other significant movers have been Vanuatu, up 20 places, thanks largly to a 1-0 defeat of New Zealand. Fiji are up 15 places. Tahiti up by 10 and Papua New Guinea by 9. New Caledonia and the Cook Islands haven't moved from their December positions.

September's OFC movers were PNG up by one, Australia down by one and Vanuatu down by one.

8 September, 2004

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