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World Footy Rankings - the inaugural list

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Saturday, September 11 2010 @ 12:19 pm ACST

Yep, exactly what Ash has said. We have had some debates on this in the past too but the only real conclusion we could come to was to do it this way. I'm sure if the American NFL and NBA decided to send their guys into a 2 month camp they could come out to the International Cup and rank #2 as well.

Whereas Australia, right now, could field its All-Australian side and win every game by 300+ points. But the reality is that in the present state of international football the fully professional players will not play. And the same goes for Ireland's AFL players. But Australia could easily field an All-Australian State league side and still win easily, or an All-Australian amateur side or country side.

The results we present are based on actual performances of actual Australian Rules football players, not theoretical players, the only exception being Australia, but they are not theoretical players, they exist, it's just that the AFL does not allow any form of Australian team in the International Cup etc, out of fairness to the other teams, not because they are shirking the challenge (although I personally would like some kind of All-Australian Under 19 amateur side compete at the next IC).

Perhaps in even as little as 10 years those assumptions might be challenged, but not now. And the reality is that PNG will start to have its best players unavailable too, as they feed into the AFL. A statistical based system like this can only judge on the actual data, or in the case of Australia we make the very obvious judgement they are #1, which is well informed by the dominant performance of their youth sides even e.g against South Africa's senior team.

It may be that at some point we declare this to be the amateur rankings only, but there is no clear line between amateur and professional these days. For now we just make what we think are sensible rules and the results should be viewed in that context. The alternative is to imagine how could every country COULD be, which means it would have nothing to do with the actual matches played, or we exclude Australia, so we'd be saying here is the list of best Australian football nations in the world, and Australia isn't one of them. To the bulk of the general public taking just a mild interest that just doesn't make sense.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

World Footy Rankings - the inaugural list

Authored by: Cam Homes
on Sunday, September 12 2010 @ 11:58 am ACST

G'day Duffman
You say we accept the Fantasy or we don't. Well we don't. Every rating point that the nations hold is the result of Fact, something like 170 actual matches played since 1994. The wins, losses, scores and the Fact of homeground advantage or not of every match that each nation and every player each nation has put on the park are Fact. There is no fantasy of injured 90metre goal kickers or 8ft 10in ruckman or Ireland not being able to play their best team or for that matter any other team (all the nations can probably say they haven't been able to put their best team on the park in some or all of their matches), but you say we are accepting a fantasy that Australia is better than all the rest.
Australia IS better than all the other nations. That is NO Fantasy, it is FACT, we have just not been able to quantify that Fact.
When Ireland puts your Fantasy team on the park and gives PNG or New Zealand a flogging then the result would be reflected in the rating points of each of those teams.
By the way, Ireland were second after Australia at the conclusion of IC02 when in actual Fact they had beaten both PNG and NZ, and without any AFL or ex-AFL players on the park.
This system has eliminated all "fantasy" it is only based on results, NOT the Might haves or Couldabeens
Stuffs my fantasy that Elizabeth North B's (my old team) were better than Nunjikopita Bs (a team the great Neil Kerley once said could have beaten Norwood (or was it West Adelaide)) one day back in the 1960's because they were playing so badly. NO facts there, just supposition/fantasy :-)
Our system does NOT accept any fantasy That is its strength.
Cam

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

World Footy Rankings - the inaugural list

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Sunday, September 12 2010 @ 01:57 pm ACST

I'm guessing Cam is the only one that has heard of Nunjikopita ! Apparently it's "not far" from Ceduna, which is a reasonable way from Port Lincoln, which is a fair way from Adelaide, which is the capital of South Australia, which hopefully most of you have heard of!

Anyway, we do accept the system isn't perfect, but at some point we have to move towards a mostly statistical system, as this is, to remove questions of bias and hopefully get wide acceptance.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

World Footy Rankings - the inaugural list

Authored by: Cam Homes
on Monday, September 13 2010 @ 05:20 pm ACST

Yes! Bret your directions are pretty good. Nunjikompita does exist, it has some wheat silos, 3 tennis courts and a Fire Station. It even had a telephone exchange and a shop once, but I reckon if you drive too fast thru the place now and blink you might miss seeing it.
But Hell! mate we were better then the Nunjikompita B's. We were cr-p but we were better than that bunch-a-cockies. Don't know even if they ever had a footy team. Oodnagalahbi doesn't exist even tho it has an International Airport. Its just my way of saying a ranking scheme based on what "might be" or "could have" just can't work.

I will publish via comments the ranks at each stage of the Euros in the next couple of days if I get a bit of spare time.
Cam

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

World Footy Rankings - the inaugural list

Authored by: Cam Homes
on Tuesday, September 14 2010 @ 10:59 am ACST

I said I would publish the ranks at each stage of the Euro Champs so here goes with the 1st Round. 1/8/10
* Last Number is rank before this round.
Rank
1 Australia N/A 1*
2 PNG 53.89 2
3 New Zealand 53.84 3
4 Nauru 47.06 4
5 USA 46.53 5
6 Ireland 45.10 7 Rise
7 Great Britain 44.65 6 Fall
8 South Africa 43.89 8
9 Denmark 42.89 10 Rise
10 Samoa 41.85 9 Fall
11 Canada 38.01 11
12 Sweden 36.34 12
13 Japan 33.33 13
14 Finland 30.52 14

Provisional Nations with Games Played.#
39.88 Peace Team #5
37.94 Iceland 1
37.00 Croatia 1
36.94 Germany 6
34.00 China 5
28.33 India 5
28.00 Spain 6

Try to get Rnd 2 out tomorrow.
Cam

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

World Footy Rankings - the inaugural list

Authored by: Cam Homes
on Tuesday, September 14 2010 @ 02:29 pm ACST

Ranks after Round 2 Euro Champs.
* last number is rank at end of round 1

1 Australia N/A *1
2 PNG 53.89 2
3 New Zealand 53.84 3
4 Nauru 47.06 4
5 USA 46.53 5
6 Ireland 45.52 6
7 Great Britain 45.39 7
8 South Africa 43.89 8
9 Denmark 42.89 9
10 Samoa 41.85 10
11 Canada 38.01 11
12 Sweden 36.34 12
13 Japan 33.33 13
14 Finland 30.52 14

Provisional Nations with games played. #
39.88 Peace Team #5
37.20 Iceland 2
36.57 Croatia 2
35.35 Germany 7
34.00 China 5
28.33 India 5
28.00 Spain 6

Note! no rise or fall this round also no rate advantage to Denmark nor any rating penalty against Finland as Rating gap was greater than 10.00 between these teams.

Round 3 just might have to wait till tomorrow.

To Mister Football, Tonga hasn't made it onto the ranks because I didn't find the results of any 'Internationals' for them. They may have played in an Arafura games match or two but if they did my memory tells me it was against the Australian Military personel based in Darwin at the time or against an all aussie Singapore or Hong Kong side.
Cam

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

World Footy Rankings - the inaugural list

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Tuesday, September 14 2010 @ 05:41 pm ACST

Tonga's first International Cup was 2008, but there were issues with whether they would actually make it. I gather they were not confirmed and no one expected them to show, so they were left out of the draw, then turned up. It was too late to shift around all the matches, so they played in the multicultural grouping that run parallel to the IC, against locally based players, which means they aren't eligible games.

Their only other matches I know of are at junior level. Hopefully we'll see them in action in Oceania later this year and at IC2011.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN