Reds are strong, but Australian rugby weak

Roar Guru

7th July, 2011

1354 Reads

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Dasher

Roar Guru

7th July, 2011

1354 Reads

There has been a lot of banging on in the media (especially here) about the imbalance in strength within the Australian conference and how that weakness and the new setup has permitted an unfair representation of Australian teams in the finals.

Initially I thought it was our Kiwi and Saffa brethren having a typical whinge, but now that I’ve run some numbers, I think they actually have a case.

Furthermore, these numbers present a pretty bleak picture of the standard of Australian rugby at the moment.

Below tabulates only the games played across conferences. In other words, all local derby matches, like Reds versus Tahs, were removed from scoring.

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	Pt

1	Reds	8	7	0	1	228	155	36
2	Sharks	8	6	0	2	236	176	34
3	Crusaders	8	6	0	2	254	150	32
4	Blues	8	4	1	3	232	207	29
5	Stormers	8	5	0	3	196	123	28
6	Cheetahs	8	4	0	4	242	224	26
7	Hurricanes	8	4	0	4	229	253	26
8	Bulls	8	4	0	4	218	195	24
9	Highlanders	8	4	0	4	174	185	24
10	Chiefs	8	4	0	4	191	185	23
11	Waratahs	8	3	0	5	161	171	20
12	Force	8	3	1	4	182	238	19
13	Lions	8	2	0	6	196	241	16
14	Brumbies	8	2	0	6	150	240	14
15	Rebels	8	1	0	7	159	305	11

As you can see, under this scoring system five of the six finalists were the same, albeit in a different order, but the Cheetahs would have qualified instead of the Waratahs. In fact, the Waratahs would have finished 11th.

What is worse is four Australian teams finished in the bottom five, which illustrates that most of the conference cannot cut the mustard internationally.

However, it is highly pleasing to see that the Queensland deserves to be at the top of the tree – without argument!

The obvious counter-argument to this is that every team should be able to beat anybody and everybody in their path to qualify for the finals, and therefore local derbies should not be discounted.

So if you consider only the local derby matches (as tabulated below), you can see further evidence of how the strength of the New Zealand and South Africa teams is handicapped by the new scoring system (and the Australian teams are helped).

	Team	P	W	D	L	F

1	Waratahs	8	7	0	1	237
2	Stormers	8	7	0	1	204
3	Blues	8	6	0	2	173
4	Reds	8	6	0	2	201
5	Bulls	8	6	0	2	198
6	Crusaders	8	5	1	2	182
7	Sharks	8	4	1	3	171
8	Highlanders	8	4	0	4	122
9	Brumbies	8	2	1	5	164
10	Force	8	2	1	5	151
11	Chiefs	8	1	1	5	141
12	Hurricanes	8	1	2	5	99
13	Cheetahs	8	1	0	7	193
14	Rebels	8	2	0	6	122
15	Lions	8	1	1	6	155

The Waratahs, who were very weak internationally, were buoyed through to the finals on the back of the six easy wins over the Force, Rebels and Brumbies. Conversely, teams like the Cheetahs and Hurricanes, who closely missed out on qualification, were cruelled by the stronger opponents they faced within their conference.

So, if there is any point to this stats-laden rabble, it is this: yes, the Australian conference was weak this year, but it won’t always be the case; and most of all, nobody has grounds to suggest the Reds do not thoroughly deserve their minor premiership and their shot at the title this weekend!

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