World Rankings

[solly]

19 hours ago, Celt said:

These rankings have Norway in 18th place.  This is higher than the Cook Islands, who have a team littered with NRL professionals.

Yep... sounds pretty accurate.

Who makes up the team is irrelevant. If you don’t play, you don’t earn ranking points. 

[Omott91]

Also incredible that before the last world cup, no tier 2 nation had beaten a tier 1 nation. In the last two years its happened 5 times.  

[Copa]

5 hours ago, Bluebags1973 said:

Further adding to the farce... Australia WON the Oceania Cup, not New Zealand - albeit on points difference. So New Zealand didn’t even win the trophy on offer (v Australia) in 2019 yet they are number 1 ???

Of the two Australia v New Zealand contests in 2018/2019, Australia’s margin of victory is hugely superior:

2018: New Zealand 26-24.

2019: Australia 26-4.

And New Zealand are number 1 ???

And if we’re counting results over 3 years as part of the rankings criteria, they didn’t even make the 2017 RLWC semi finals!!

 

If Australia wants to engage with international rugby league more frequently to improve their ranking they are more than welcome to participate.

I think it’s great it all doesn’t revolve around Australia anymore.

[Allora]

The Ranking system is about as credible as the Golden Boot selection and criteria.

You wonder why this Sport struggles to get new fans or hang on to the ones they have.

Virtually everything is a Balls up.

 

 

[flyingking]

Other oddities Greece are now supposedly better than the likes of Ireland, Wales and Italy.

The rankings adjudicators must have seen something special in Serbia's two 80+ hammerings to merit them moving up four places.

And topping the lot Poland would be favourites to beat Jamaica. 

[roughyedspud]

England moved to 2nd after last season 2-1 victory over NZ..

 

So this pathetic GB nonsense has cost England the chance of becoming #1 in the world...

 

Nice one

[Bluebags1973]

7 hours ago, Copa said:

If Australia wants to engage with international rugby league more frequently to improve their ranking they are more than welcome to participate.

I think it’s great it all doesn’t revolve around Australia anymore.

I agree Australia should be playing more games. The scrapping of a mid-season Test for Australia is a disgrace. This means an iconic brand is only “visual” every 12 months instead of the Kangaroos brand being promoted and is “visual” every 6 months. That Kangaroos mid-season Test was a marquee signature match on the Rugby League calendar. Now which business gets rid of their marquee events? Crazy! The mid-season Test rated higher on TV than all NRL regular season matches (behind only SOO and some finals) and drew bigger crowds than most NRL matches. The game as a whole and the Kangaroos brand is much poorer for it.

As for New Zealand, yes they have played ‘X’ amount of matches which had helped their ranking but I don’t think their results overall justify number 1 position.

 

 

[Click]

8 hours ago, roughyedspud said:

England moved to 2nd after last season 2-1 victory over NZ..

 

So this pathetic GB nonsense has cost England the chance of becoming #1 in the world...

 

Nice one

Not sure how much better "England" would of performed, rather than GB. 4 losses would probably hurt England more in the rankings, then not having played in 2019.

[Dave T]

8 hours ago, roughyedspud said:

England moved to 2nd after last season 2-1 victory over NZ..

 

So this pathetic GB nonsense has cost England the chance of becoming #1 in the world...

 

Nice one

why would England have played better? Same coach, same players. Probably same fixtures as we didn't want to play the Aussies at home, and they didn't want to play us down under. 

[Dave T]

3 hours ago, Bluebags1973 said:

I agree Australia should be playing more games. The scrapping of a mid-season Test for Australia is a disgrace. This means an iconic brand is only “visual” every 12 months instead of the Kangaroos brand being promoted and is “visual” every 6 months. That Kangaroos mid-season Test was a marquee signature match on the Rugby League calendar. Now which business gets rid of their marquee events? Crazy! The mid-season Test rated higher on TV than all NRL regular season matches (behind only SOO and some finals) and drew bigger crowds than most NRL matches. The game as a whole and the Kangaroos brand is much poorer for it.

As for New Zealand, yes they have played ‘X’ amount of matches which had helped their ranking but I don’t think their results overall justify number 1 position.

 

 

Interestingly, I have been having a bit of a play about with a spreadsheet to look at the last three years, allocating points for wins, but also a nominal point for losing, which rewards actually playing. I have then applied a factor to give more importance to more recent results - for example, I have made it so you only get 25% of your points from 3 years ago, 50% from 2 years ago and 100% from this year. 

TBH, whichever way I cut it (adjusting points and ratios), the system puts the Kiwis top. And the rationale for that is that they have won most games in international RL (out of the top 4) in 2019. They have 3 wins versus the Aussies 1, England's 0 and Tonga's 2. 

In 2018 the Kiwis had 2 wins versus the Aussies 1. England had a great year last year with 4 wins, and Tonga had 1. 

In 2017, the Aussies had a great year, winning 7 and the Kiwis had a disaster, but the value of those results should rightly diminish in value. 

So actually getting out and winning games looks like it is being rewarded - as a principle I can get my head around that!

Transparency would be good on how they calculate it, but it is easier to see how the Kiwis are top when I look at the numbers.

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

5 hours ago, Dave T said:

why would England have played better? Same coach, same players. Probably same fixtures as we didn't want to play the Aussies at home, and they didn't want to play us down under. 

More pride 

[Click]

5 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

More pride 

Really? Seeing how a lot of this GB team are on the older side of things, a lot of them probably grew up watching GB rather than England play. You would of thought that would of made them pretty proud?

[Dave T]

26 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

More pride 

I'll assume that was a joke?

[Bluebags1973]

On 19/11/2019 at 22:39, Dave T said:

Interestingly, I have been having a bit of a play about with a spreadsheet to look at the last three years, allocating points for wins, but also a nominal point for losing, which rewards actually playing. I have then applied a factor to give more importance to more recent results - for example, I have made it so you only get 25% of your points from 3 years ago, 50% from 2 years ago and 100% from this year. 

TBH, whichever way I cut it (adjusting points and ratios), the system puts the Kiwis top. And the rationale for that is that they have won most games in international RL (out of the top 4) in 2019. They have 3 wins versus the Aussies 1, England's 0 and Tonga's 2. 

In 2018 the Kiwis had 2 wins versus the Aussies 1. England had a great year last year with 4 wins, and Tonga had 1. 

In 2017, the Aussies had a great year, winning 7 and the Kiwis had a disaster, but the value of those results should rightly diminish in value. 

So actually getting out and winning games looks like it is being rewarded - as a principle I can get my head around that!

Transparency would be good on how they calculate it, but it is easier to see how the Kiwis are top when I look at the numbers.

Fair enough you going through that  complicated mathematical equation. I guess the rankings are there to stir up discussion and debate. I’d love to have someone at the RLIF explain to us precisely how they come up with each country’s final percentage points. Yes more transparency would be ideal!

[HawkMan]

This whole angst about rankings is nonsense, as is talk of farce. It doesn't matter a Scooby in RL rankings, certainly not at the top. It's not football, where it certainly does matter. England have just qualified for Euro 2020, great, if they do good in the tournament they get a possible top ranking for the WC 2022 draw, and their toughest opponent might be Switzerland, if they don't do well it could mean a second tier ranking and they get Germany or Spain. In RL the top three or four don't need to qualify for World Cups, so who cares ?

The tier system in RL is pants too. I may be wrong but I'm under the impression that tier 2 international teams get less fixtures against the big boys and are restricted in who they play. In football the Germanys and Gibraltars are treated the same in so far as fixtures go. That's the way to get the lesser nations to improve. There is of course seedings and ' pots' in football WC draws but in qualifying all get to play in a group.

Remember 1981 I think it was, " Maggie Thatcher, Winston Churchill, Lord Nelson, your lads took one hell of a beating" because Norway stuffed England, but with regular matches against top class opposition the useless Norwegians were reaching the WC soon after.

I really believe RL needs to embrace any side that wants to join the internationals party and give them games.

[Shaggy]

10 hours ago, HawkMan said:

In football the Germanys and Gibraltars are treated the same in so far as fixtures go. That's the way to get the lesser nations to improve. There is of course seedings and ' pots' in football WC draws but in qualifying all get to play in a group.

Yes and no. In Euro and WC qualifying that’s true. The Nations League fixtures have tried to bring teams on a similar level together.

Best of both worlds, really.

[roughyedspud]

On 19/11/2019 at 11:03, Dave T said:

why would England have played better?

Because it would have meant something..

[Dave T]

3 minutes ago, roughyedspud said:

Because it would have meant something..

Nonsense.