I have been reading the most recent edition of Ben Darwin’s Gain Line Report. Ben provides a teamwork index (TWI) for all fifteen Super Rugby teams.
Ben’s insights have taken me back to look at my metric for Super Rugby performance. I use performance in the current season compared to previous year’s ranking as my starting point for thinking about organisational change.
After six rounds of this year’s competition, this is my record of performance against 2014 ranking:
In this legend, green is an expected win, blue an expected defeat, gold an unexpected win and red and unexpected loss. This legend indicates that the Hurricanes have had a steady, successful start to their season. They have defeated teams they are expected to defeat and in Round 6 had a narrow away win against the Highlanders ranked one place above them in 2014. The Stormers have had a good start to their season with unexpected wins early.
The ladder in 2015 after 6 Rounds is:
The combination of blue and red for the Blues and the Force has pushed them to the bottom of he ladder. The Reds have played above their 2014 ranking once in six games, a win at home against the Force.
My data resonate with Ben’s observations about TWI. It will be interesting to observe how teams overcome their ranking and TWI index in the next few weeks as they start to make longer journeys for away fixtures.
Photo Credit
Super XV Waratahs v Force (Simon_sees, CC BY 2.0)
