There have been plenty here to criticise the other failings of this article, so I would like to focus on one that gets less attention:

I’m sick to death of constantly hearing about how biased refereeing cost France the 2011 World Cup final. This author cites one decision that went against the French in the article. To his/her credit, that is one more that most articles on the topic cite. It’s amazing how many people can state some variant of “the ABs got away with murder that night”, yet how few can point to examples to justify their point.

Here is the word from someone who actually went to the effort of analysing the refereeing in a rigorous way:

http://www.lerugbynistere.fr/news/le-debrief-de-joel-jutge–vis-ma-vie-de-craig-joubert–.php

For those who can’t read French and won’t Google Translate, this article asked a top French referee how they would arbitrate 24 situations from that game, and compared them to the decisions Joubert made. Of those 24, the referee agreed with Joubert on 17, thought 4 favoured the ABs, and 3 favoured the French. Hardly the picture of bias claimed here and elsewhere.

Thanks Sheek, that is certainly a very good representation of the increased number of internationals.

Two questions to follow up your conclusions (apologies in advance if your answer(s) are on other threads):

1) How many tests do you think a top international team (in this case the Wallabies) should play in a year?
2) To achieve this number, which games should be dropped from the standard Wallabies season?

Surely that comment isn’t worthy of moderation?

Oh, it is obviously far less terrible, and mostly just reflects poorly on Smith’s decision making. Even the most vocal critics of NZ Rugby agree with you on that one. But that won’t stop certain individuals and companies who care more about the reader numbers than what happened making some mileage out of it while the iron is hot.

Hansen has said that it’s just a one-match ban, which I guess is a reasonable, if slightly harsh, punishment for being an idiot. It has some precedent at least. Hopefully that will be the end of it. If it isn’t, then he’s been extremely hard done by.

From a NZ perspective, it seems to be the timing of it rather than the actions.

Recently, the case of a young NPC player who had assaulted four people and received a sentence seen by some as light came to media attention. Add this to NZ Rugby’s controversial response to the Chief’s “Mad Monday”, and there has been an increasing discussion of rugby’s culture by the NZ media as of late. Smith’s antics have arrived at exactly the wrong time for him and NZ Rugby.

I personally agree with you though; while his actions aren’t fair on his partner, he’s hardly the first to have an affair. Likewise with the inappropriate location.

I think they’ll try Latham initially. I’m not convinced he’s the long-term answer, but there’s hardly anyone else battering down the door demanding selection.

A quick scour of the Ford Trophy shows Michael Bracewell as a possible long-term option, but I suspect that the selectors will want to see another season before selecting him. George Worker also has opened for CD, and might provide a 6th bowler in the role of Grant Elliot. I’m not convinced that either is at genuine international class as of now. And of course, there is always Jesse Ryder, and everything that selection entails…

Promoting a batsman (viz. Ronchi, Anderson) up the order has been tried and failed so many times, I hope they don’t continue with it. Look at Neesham for a prime example of this.

I doubt that a straightforward basher will be specifically searched for, since Guptill has one of the better strike rates for ODI openers. More likely, the best opener will be selected and a plan will be formed around him. We simply don’t have the player depth to demand a specific role.

Interesting you mention the strike rates of Williamson and Astle, I’m always slightly suprised to see Williamson near the top of that particular statistic for NZ. The other aspect I guess it represents is the steady upward climb of run rates in ODIs; a 300 chase represented a much greater challenge when Astle was playing than now.

Agreed. I guess we’ve been spoiled recently having had Vettori for so long; its easy to forget how rare a consistent spinner is for a NZ team. Watching what has been happening with the various spinners since has been really frustrating. Craig seemed to be doing well until he ran into Australia (and to be fair to him, he isn’t the first to have this issue), while I’m not entirely sure that the selectors know what they want out of Santner. He seems to be stuck between the role of the team spinner and allrounder.

The Indian series certainly shapes up to be revealing. Aside from the spinners, Guptil must surely be on his last chance, and I hope that Nicholls can continue to make the 5 spot his own. It would also be nice to see Henry get a crack with the new ball.

Out of curiosity, how do you see the Black Caps plugging the opening gap McCullum has left in the ODI squad?

It feels odd to be a NZ cricket supporter, watching a national team with a largely good batting attack and a fragile-looking bowling attack. Yet this is what we have.

One thing I have noticed is that since the 2015 World Cup, Southee and Boult appear to have lost a good 10kph of speed. I distinctly recall Boult reaching the early to mid 140s, with Southee being not far behind. Yet against SA, they seemed around the 135 mark. During the matches against Zimbabwe, Boult seemed to struggle to reach 130. Whether this is coaching, injury, or simply aging I don’t know, but it hardly bodes well.

I’m glad you mentioned Santner, because I’m questioning his role in the team. He should definitely be selected in conditions where two spinners are a clear option (e.g. India, Zimbabwe), but selecting him alongside four seamers seems a weird tactic. Surely selected a specialist spinner such as Sodhi and Neesham or Anderson would make more sense. I don’t think Santner offers quite enough as a spinner to be selected on these merits, and his batting is not as good as the other two allrounders (judging by first class records).

Interestingly, Neesham was playing some county cricket at the same time as the Zimbabwe tour. I don’t know if he was injured again during these matches.

I was suprised to see Squire on the bench (thought Tuipulotu was the safe option), and can’t help but wonder if the AB’s brains trust want to try and convert him into a loose forward/ lock option. They’ve made no secret of the fact that they think it is a missing element, perhaps they see him as the best candidate for this.

Seeing Ben Smith at the back, I’m not suprised they’re looking. While his many strengths have been discussed better elsewhere, an often overlooked one for me is his ability to play just about anywhere in the backline. This has allowed the coaches to select a replacement for his position, giving them a vast degree of tactical flexibility. Hence no midfield replacements.

Having supported them for well over a decade, I also quite like the Highlanders :).

That said, I am very worried about their chances in the playoffs. Working from the assumption they beat the Brumbies, there is a more than reasonable chance they will be looking at a South African-based semifinal.

That makes their roadtrip from the end of the international window go Dunedin – Port Elizabeth – Buenos Aires – Dunedin – Canberra – Cape Town/Johannesburg. And if they win that semi, they better hope that the other South African team wins, or they’ll end up with a journey that makes Phileas Fogg’s trip look like an afternoon stroll.

I can’t help but worry that that will take its toll.

That said, your predictions have gone fairly well thus far, so maybe there is hope.

Fair enough. Living in NZ without pay-TV access (over 2014-5) makes it hard to follow the NRC. After watching incidents in Super Rugby where cynical-looking play gets given the benefit of the doubt (e.g. the Ellis/Read penalty in Friday’s match), I have begun to assume the worst about the way this has been policed. I’m glad to be wrong.

The biggest thing that concerns me about the revamped scoring is the possible increase in cynical infringements to prevent tries. An increased incentive to score tries also means that the opposition has an increased incentive to stop them. For that reason, I’m not convinced that there will necessarily be more tries scored, or that the game will be more attractive.

That said, I am happy to be proven wrong, so good luck to the ARU in testing this.

New Zealand: Israel Dagg; Ben Smith; George Moala; Ryan Crotty; Julian Savea; Beauden Barrett; Aaron Smith; Kieran Read (c); Sam Cane; Elliot Dixon; Sam Whitelock; Brodie Retallick; Charlie Faumuina; Dane Coles; Joe Moody.

Reserves: Codie Taylor, Wyatt Crockett, Ofa Tu’ungafasi, Luke Romano, Liam Squire, Tawera Kerr-Barlow, Lima Sopoaga, Waisake Naholo.

Wales: Rhys Patchell, Liam Williams, Jonathan Davies, Jamie Roberts, Hallam Amos, Dan Biggar, Rhys Webb, Taulupe Faletau, Sam Warburton (captain),Ross Moriarty, Alun Wyn Jones, Luke Charteris, Tomas Francis, Ken Owens, Rob Evans

Replacements: Scott Baldwin, Aaron Jarvis, Samson Lee, Jake Ball, Ellis Jenkins, Gareth Davies, Rhys Priestland, Scott Williams

Will be interesting to see how the new boys go for the ABs. Looking forward to Dixon in particular

Yes, when I looked into it I was pleasantly suprised at both how simple it was (compared to other ranking systems) and how it still gives a very accurate insight into the strength of the team. Aside from my WC concerns, the only other aspects it gets wrong (geographic and calendar variances) are really difficult to accurately compensate for, and have a minimal effect on the overall rankings.

True, as much as these extremes can be considered to be accurate. Although I do dislike arbitrary rating caps.

My personal preference would be to alter the factors of the formula (the gradient and intercepts of the graphing lines used) entirely during the WC, if they are going to count for more. That way, the games still count extra, while not disadvantaging teams that have little opportunity to improve their rating (NZ and SA being the most prominent examples at the last cup).

It does strike me as a little complex, but the current method of simply doubling the points seems too simple and not without problems.

Thanks for going to the effort to determine this. One thing that I think is missing from the IRB/World Rugby rankings site is a rankings predictor, similar to what ICC have. Being able to investigate all the series and simultaneous impacts thereof would be an interesting exercise.

Out of curiosity, what do you think of the ranking system in general? I keep meaning to do an article on it, but time is a major constraint for me at the moment… 🙁

I agree. During the last World Cup, for instance, there was a point when Australia came close to overtaking NZ, despite NZ not losing any games. The reason for this was that NZ gained no ranking points at all until the semi-finals (double zero is still zero), while Australia was close enough to the pack to still earn their doubled points. Not to mention other essentially random swings in rankings. Really, if points are going to be increased – and I think that they should be – then the range at which they can be earned should also increase to compensate.

That said, these are the extremes that are less well covered by the statistics, so there are always going to be some problems at this stage.

Yeah you’re correct about the situations I’m thinking of. However, there is another aspect that came to mind.

Rugby is still a team game, and to me the team as a whole has to accept a level of responsibility for the actions of its members. I’ll agree that a single red card is not necessarily a broad problem, as per the examples you have given (and a few others). Multiple red card offences over, say, a Super Rugby season, suggest a discipline problem that the team should own up to.

So, to reduce the possibility of a team using such a rule change cynically, I think that, for instance in Super Rugby, if Chook’s proposal was used after the first red card of a season each team red should result in the loss of four competition points. That would still allow for an entertaining contest, whilst giving teams the benefit of the doubt once.

While I like that idea Colvin, it relies on a reliable and consistent judiciary to work properly. Whether we have that at the moment is a more open question.

That said, I fall into a similar category to Moa; I like the general concept and believe it could work, but would need some convincing of the details. I also think there should be some further punishment to the team to prevent a “hit-player” approach. Perhaps a fine or loss of competition points for repeat offenders…?

Thanks for that context. I was wondering whether teams themselves could be considered outliers, but at that range, none are anywhere close to the mark. Which is somewhat reassuring, I guess.

Yeah, Berry comes off as an interesting case, given that his outliers almost seem to cancel themselves out. Another one who interests me is Ben O’Keefe. This is more because he has the largest difference from the mean of the referees than anything else, though. He only seems to appear in one of the outlying games, and while his average penalties awarded is high, it is similarly not the worst.

The wide SD is an issue though, especially given it is around 20% of the total penalties awarded in a game. Which is nuts. I mean, that is a potential 12 point swing within one deviation in a game. Imagine telling a team that isn’t statistically significant.
Even the deviation per game seems a little big.

So “high penalty” games are more common than their counterparts… I guess I shouldn’t be suprised. Would it be at all possibe to remove the biggest outlier from each referee to help streamlining? Or would that remove too much data? It would certainly help to check their stats, allowing for the fact that some refs are going to get a weird game at some stage.

Outstanding work guys.

A few questions:

With regards to Table 1, what is the standard deviation (or equivalent measure of statistical significance) for the figures? As you note, most of the gaps between home and away games are fairly small (and expected), but it would be nice to get some context to those. Especially given that according to the raw numbers, “home advantage” is potentially a much larger advantage in, say, Sydney than in Christchurch.

I would agree that a range of nine penalties per game sounds quite high for an acceptable level, especially given that around twenty penalties a game are awarded. The harder question is what an appropriate range is, accepting that there will be differences between teams and referees. So should we be looking equally hard at how many penalties each referee awards in total (given some variation is normal)? This may place the Kiwi referees (who seem to both top and bottom the penalties awarded) under some scrutiny. Alternatively, should we be tightening standards against high-offense teams?

Should we also be looking at referees who favour the away team?

Thanks again.

I’ll confess to picking the Force. As Allanthus and Kev have noted, Perth is a traditional banana skin for the Crusaders. After a lot of travel and some close results, this issue could continue
Besides, the Force have to win a couple of games, and have an excellent record this season when playing against teams wearing red.
Nobody quote me.

I was looking over a shorter time period (last 5 years). If you expand it out to your timeframe, it does even out.
It’s also worth noting Australia will be touring SA immediately after NZ, and then again later this year. Admittedly, these will not be for tests, but the principle of conflicting summers still applies.

This is commonly trotted out as a reason, but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. After all, it doesn’t stop SA touring Australia with some frequency, and vice versa.

Agreed DS. Its a bit unfair for to claim NZ hasn’t been beating Australia when Australia have been refusing to play them. The last Aus-NZ test series in NZ was in the 2009-10 season, by the way.

South Africa have been similarly infrequent visitors. Only England can be potentially exempted from this status.

Also of note is how New Zealand has drawn overseas series against both Pakistan and England in the last 18 months, while Australia lost overseas series against the same opponents immediately before and after. Actually, Australia’s overseas record over the last 5 years is generally atrocious, but that’s a different story. But it seems a little convenient that every single one of NZ’s victories is considered insignificant due to the opposition, when the same could be said about a fair number of Australia’s opponents. Particularly when Australia plays the bulk of its games at home.

Edit: Ronan, well Aus just hosted the WI for the Boxing Day test, so there’s that. Plus there’s the fact that under the old ICC regulations, Australia was obliged to. And didn’t.