The All Blacks are immune to the international rugby rankings dogfight but could play a spoiling role as pool allocations for the 2015 World Cup draw are determined.

World champions New Zealand sit almost seven ranking points ahead of nearest rivals South Africa as the world’s No.1 team and will remain there at the end of the spring international window, regardless of the results of Tests against Wales this weekend and England a week later.

However, there is plenty at stake for other teams.

The top four in the world on December 3 will be the seeded teams in each group for the World Cup in England.

Every pool will also be allocated one team from the second tier (teams ranked five to eight) and one from the third (teams ranked nine to 12).

With surprise losses to Argentina and Samoa, Wales have dropped to eighth in the world and will be desperate to avoid dropping into the third tier which would pit them in a World Cup pool with two established powers.

That could be their fate if they lose to New Zealand and then Australia a week later, with Samoa (ninth ranked), Scotland (10th) or Italy (11th) all poised to climb past them.

Those three teams play their final Tests of the year this weekend. Samoa must overcome fourth-ranked France in Paris, Italy host Australia, while Scotland have the most palatable assignment against Tonga in Edinburgh.

The losers of this weekend’s season-ending Test between sixth-ranked Argentina and Ireland (7th) could also potentially drop into the third tier if other results don’t go their way.

Current rankings: New Zealand 92.91pts, 1; South Africa 86.05, 2; Australia 85.94, 3; France 84.99, 4; England 81.96, 5; Argentina 79.89, 6; Ireland 79.04, 7; Wales 78.95, 8; Samoa 78.79, 9; Scotland 77.42, 10; Italy 76.61, 11; Tonga 74.51, 12.