England got their Six Nations campaign back on track and ended France's hopes of the Grand Slam with a 24-13 victory at the Stade de France on Saturday, a result which sees them return to fourth spot in the latest Internationl Rugby Board (IRB) World Rankings.
Tries from Paul Sackey and Richard Wigglesworth helped England repeat their Rugby World Cup 2007 semi-final defeat of France at the same venue and enabled them to swap places with Australia, regaining the place they lost following their opening Six Nations defeat by Wales.
England's one-place gain strengthens their position as the leading northern hemisphere nation in the IRB World Rankings behind world champions South Africa, New Zealand and Argentina - although they still trail the Pumas by 2.46 rating points.
France remain in sixth despite the loss, although their rating points slip to 81.00 means that with Ireland's 34-13 victory over Scotland at Croke Park they are now separated from Eddie O'Sullivan's side by little more than a single point.
The most emphatic victory of the weekend came at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff with Wales scoring 34 unanswered points in the second half to beat Italy 47-8.
This result did not effect their position of eighth, although their rating improved by half a point to 77.27.
This means that Wales now trail Ireland by 1.54 points ahead of their visit to Croke Park in a fortnight's time as the only side now capable of claiming the Grand Slam having seen their rating at the beginning of 2008 improve by 3.1 points with three victories under new coach Warren Gatland.
A third successive Six Nations defeat in 2008 for both Scotland and Italy have seen their rating points slip further in 10th and 11th respectively, meaning the Scots lose more ground on RWC 2007 quarter-finalists Fiji and Italy fall to less than a point ahead of Samoa.
Meanwhile, there may only have been one positional change in the latest IRB World Rankings, but the weekend's two European Nations Cup fixtures have also led to some slight improvements in rating point totals for Georgia and Romania.
Georgia continue to occupy their highest ever position of 14th, but have now established a 0.58 rating point cushion between themselves and Canada following their 11-6 defeat of Portugal at the Estadio Universitário de Lisboa on Saturday. However they remain 3.68 points behind Tonga, the side ranked above them.
The Georgians, under former Wallaby and Springbok assistant coach Tim Lane, have now won three European Nations Cup matches in 2008 to move four points clear of Romania at the top of the standings of the two-year competition with Russia a further two points back, albeit with two games in hand on their rivals.
Portugal by contrast have lost three of their four European Nations Cup matches in 2008 - the exception being a 42-6 defeat of the Czech Republic - and remain 22nd in the rankings, although now only 1.49 rating points clear of Korea and with their title hopes all but gone with 13 points in fifth.
The weekend's other winners Romania remain 16th in the latest rankings following their 17-11 defeat of Spain before an impressive crowd of 12,000 at the Estadio de la Ciudad Universitaria de Madrid on Saturday.
Romania though now trail Canada by only three tenths, while Spain remain in 21st - albeit a little further behind Uruguay - following the narrow defeat by a side that had beaten them by at least 24 points in each of their last six meetings dating back to February 2002.