Introduction
This is a ninth post about performance against ranking in three football codes in Australia.
The codes are Australian Rules, Rugby League and Rugby Union
You can find some background information about this project here.
Australian Rules: Winners and Losers
Eight of the nine games in Round 9 of the AFL followed the 2012 Rankings. The exception was the Western Bulldogs defeat of St Kilda. The Bulldogs were trailing by two points at the end of the Third Quarter. In overcoming an end of third quarter deficit, the Western Bulldogs became the tenth team to do so this season. Adelaide became the eleventh team to overcome a third quarter deficit when they ran down an 18 point deficit over North Melbourne. St Kilda have held two end of Third Quarter leads and lost, North Melbourne three (Rounds 1, 8 and 9).
To date there have been 21 games out of 81 in which a team has outperformed its 2012 Ranking. Three teams account for 10 of these wins: Essendon (4), Gold Coast (3) and Fremantle (3). The team having most difficulty playing to its 2012 ranking is St Kilda (4 defeats to lower ranked teams). West Coast (3) and Adelaide (3) have had difficulty maintaining their ranking too.
Average Winner’s Profile this season and in Round 9:
Average Loser’s Profile this season and Round 9:
Rugby League
Week 11 saw the second defeat of the season for South Sydney. They were defeated by the Sharks. This week the Panthers, Warriors and Wests outperformed their rankings also with victories over St George, Knights and Cowboys respectively. To date there have been 33 games out of 88 in which teams have outperformed their rankings. The Roosters and Knights have both won five games against higher ranked opposition. The panthers have had four wins. The teams finding it difficult to play to ranking have been the Bulldogs (six losses), the Cowboys (five losses) and the raiders (four losses).
Rugby Union
http://www.flickr.com/photos/62138788@N06/8523607118/
Week 15 of the season has an interesting pattern. The top 7 teams from 2012 played to their ranking. The bottom half of the ladder was volatile with the Rebels and the Force recording wins over the Warratahs and Highlanders respectively. So far this season there have been 34 games out of 95 where teams have outplayed their ranking. Three teams are responsible for half of this total (Blues (5), Kings (4), Force (4) and Brumbies (4)). The Stormers and the Reds have had most difficulty playing to their 2012 rankings (7 and 5 defeats respectively).
Photo Credits
Beautiful Day for a Game (Dannebrog, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Laser Rain (Colin Adland, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Blues v Crusaders 2013 (Tai Ha, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
