Post IC11 World Rankings update - Ireland #1 contenders

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Post IC11 World Rankings update - Ireland #1 contenders

Authored by: Ian Hill
on Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 06:02 am ACDT

Guess I'm wondering how on earth both Sweden and Germany can be above Denmark.

Denmark and Sweden have played each other eight times. They drew once - in the second of those games which was six years ago, in a game where Sweden played 12 Aussies and Denmark 0. Every other game has been won by Denmark, convincingly, by margins of 24, 81, 15, 58, 101, 50 and 39 points - the last two of which were this year and one in a match of such importance that it was in the IC.

As for Germany, well I guess they don't play enough to be ranked accurately. But Denmark and Germany have played each other only twice, with Denmark winning both games, by margins og 197 and 174 points - Germany having not yet scored a goal against Denmark.

Yes, I know there are more variables, but I think it's safe to assume the above simple facts justify a re-think of the system.

Post IC11 World Rankings update - Ireland #1 contenders

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Thursday, October 06 2011 @ 03:11 pm ACDT

It's a symptom of not enough matches played between teams of varying strength. There's a link at the end of the article which shows all the matches that have been included.

www.worldfootynews.com/staticpages/index.php/World_Rankings_Matches

I agree Denmark should be a little higher. But their IC11 form was a loss to South Africa, a somewhat statistically meaningless win over the very low ranked China, a win over Sweden, thrashed by Ireland (including a "bonus" loss of points for the big margin), destroyed by Nauru (another "bonus" loss) and a loss to Great Britain. So there's plenty of evidence to push them down.

Compared with Germany who did not play so sit steady, and Sweden, who lost to NZ, a largely statistically meaningless win over India, a loss to Denmark, thrashed by Ireland, lost to Tonga, beat Japan. So some wins and losses but also overall poor. Overall my gut feel would've been they would've stayed below Denmark as a result of that.

Not defending the system, just trying to explain the quirks that will always occur with any purely mathematically driven scheme without human "common sense" intervention. If I win the lottery and can retire to a beach somewhere I will sit and ponder a new system. I do have a few ideas.

But as bad as it might look for Denmark, they really are only probably 2 spots out of 19 too low. And only 0.35 points behind Sweden, which is tiny. Change any recent result and they'd probably jump above. The difference between top and bottom is about 30 points, so Denmark is about 1% of that range behind a more appropriate ranking.

Hopefully Denmark plays an eligible match some time next year and a win against middle ranked opposition should see them jump above several teams.

---
Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

Post IC11 World Rankings update - Ireland #1 contenders

Authored by: Cam Homes
on Saturday, October 08 2011 @ 04:37 pm ACDT

I have to agree with most of what you say Brett (doesn't happen that often :-) ) but think that these little quirks have popped up because of the log jam of nations in the mid section of the ranks.

We have 4 nations between 57.78 and 47.00 rating points and we have 9 nations between 47.00 and 37.00 rating points(4 of which are on 37 something points) and then 5 nations between 37.00 and 27.00 rating points.

If we look at Peace Team, China and Japan and add them to the middle section we've got 12 nations jammed into a 15-16 point spread. So any movement(which can be up to 3.00 points) by any one team could see that team leap above or fall below a team whose standard is clearly not as high or not as low respectively.

A few more tests between the teams in the middle ranks will see the spread of points widen and fewer of these little quirks pop up.

We all reckoned a while back, that Canada was ranked too low, but I don't think any one can complain about where they sit now. One quirk gone and we have another pop up, eg. Denmark falling below team that hasn't played as many games recently -Germany- and Japan falling below team only three games into being fully ranked -China-.

Perhaps we will have little quirks continue to pop up for a while until the points spread widens a bit more between these middle ranked teams, and if we continue to have bunches of teams entering the ranks at the same time as we did during the IC.

Denmark could play a test against any of Germany, Sweden or France (or GB although they lost at IC) and win and they would jump up above those teams and if we could get a China v Japan test we'd see Japan slip above China(unless they lose of course).

?? How far off is a Norway v Finland Test or an Iceland v Finland Test??

Cam

---
Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

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