Analysis of Strength of Conference Tables.

I went through the games each team played outside of its own conference to try and see compare the relative strength of the conferences and see
which teams were benefited/harmed by being part of each conference. (and yes I know this is not commercial reality now, but I wanted to see which conference was actually the strongest rather than hearing it all the time but not actually doing the research)

5 points for a win. No bonus point included to focus on wins alone. Let me know if there are mistakes and I'll edit it.


___________________________________________________________________________
Chiefs beat - Brumbies, Tahs, Force, Cheetahs, Sharks, Lions, Bulls = 35 points
Stormers beat - Canes, Blues, Highlanders, Reds, Force, Tahs, Rebels = 35 points

_______________________________________________________________________________________Crusaders beat - Cheetahs, Lions, Stormers, Tahs, Reds = 30 points ___________________________________________________________________________
Sharks beat - Reds, Brumbies, Blues, Highlanders, Force = 25 points
Bulls beat - Cusaders, Brumbies, Reds, Rebels, Tahs = 25 points
Hurricanes beat - Lions, Force, Sharks, Rebels, Tahs = 25 points
______________________________________________________________________________
Reds beat - Blues, Chiefs, Lions, Highlanders = 20 points
Blues beat - Bulls, Force, Lions, Brumbies = 20 points
Highlanders beat - Tahs, Rebels, Cheetahs, Bulls. = 20 points
Brumbies beat - Cheetahs, Hurricanes, Lions, Highlanders = 20 points
Cheetahs beat - Hurricanes, Rebels, Tahs = 20 points ______________________________________________________________________________
Rebels beat - Blues, Crusaders = 10 points
______________________________________________________________________________
Lions beat - Rebels = 5 points
Tahs beat - Sharks = 5 points
Force beat - Lions = 5 points
______________________________________________________________________________

Conclusions:
The NZ conference is considerably stronger than the others, with the worst team, the Blues, still recording 4 wins.
The SA conference has one very weak team, the Lions, and one slightly below average side, the Cheetahs.
The Aussie conference is by far the weakest with 3 weak sides and their best two sides in the middle.

Unknowns - some teams avoided playing the top 6 more than others. This is perhaps the reason, the Reds, who are one of the better sides at finals time (at least at Suncorp) only recorded 4 wins.

Regardless, the inescapable conclusion from this is that the strongest Aussie sides and to a lesser extent the strongest SA sides disproportionately benefit from having the weakest sides in the conference from which it is easier to win and collect bonus points. On the other hand the relative strength of the NZ conference makes it that much harder to top the table or achieve a high position.

This is all hypothetical. No excuses. Game on next week.
Good luck to all sides. (except the Reds, Sharks, Bulls, and Stormers)

Good analysis, but not exactly surprising results.

It is obvious to all that nz is the strongest, no matter what some south Africans would have us think.

Yeah fair call. If only the Crusaders had the option to chalk up an extra win by playing the Rebels twice.

The Reds got rolled by the Force early in the season. Theres no easy points.

Team strengths are cyclical. Rebels have improved immensely in their second season, the Force while struggling this year, have had decent seasons. I'd say SA sides are the only one having a charmed run as the Lions and the Cheetahs have been average for their entire existences. I do see the cheetahs developing into a competitive unit however.

The analysis above suggests, for this season, the Cheetahs did better than the Tahs, Force, Rebels and Lions.
Actually, the Cheetahs have improved. They are certainly nowhere near as bad as the Lions.

For sure, the NZ conference probably has the stronger teams and Australia the weaker when looking at the competition as a whole. Going by the analysis above NZ teams generally won a lot of games against SA and Aus teams, SA is split and Aus not so pretty. However, the largest spread between teams in an individual conference, based on the point system used above, is in the SA Conference. I am not saying that because of this the SA 'strong' teams have it easier than the NZ and Aus 'strong' teams in terms of competing within their respective conferences. The last few rounds of SA derbies certainly did not give that impression.

Just saying that a conference's strength in comparison to other conferences does not entirely represent the ease or difficulty of derby matches within that conference (where all these ‘gift points’ are said to come from), and hence whether a conference is weak in its own right or not. Australia might have the weaker conference compared to the other two conferences, but each time two Aus teams meet it is hard fought, the same as for the NZ and SA conferences. There are no really easy victories within each conference, more or less. In the end the top team of each conference usually deserves to be there. It was just as difficult for the Reds to top their conference as it was for the Chiefs and Stormers, regardless of how they got there. Whether or not each conference winner automatically deserves a place in the finals is another story.

You are over complicating it. The Aussie conference is clearly the easiest, making it much easier to get easy wins for the strongest teams in it. The fact they were closely fought is not a reflection of the Force, for example, actually being strong. This is an objective analysis, not based on impressions.

Also, note, I have amended the table. I missed two wins. One for the Crusaders against the Force, and one for the Cheetahs against the Force. This further increases the difference.

I hope having 5 Aussie teams really does develop the game in Aussie. If it doesn't, I'd want to see the competition reduced and replaced by a few other games to make up for lost revenue.

Force beat the Reds. Their is no over complicating it.

Just worry about your own province and quit the whinging

This year has certainly shown the Australian conference to be really weak but I think it is a case of swings and roundabouts. The NZ conference has been really strong this year mostly because the Hurricanes, Highlanders and Chiefs all performed a lot better than they have in recent years.

In South Africa, the Cheetahs are greatly improved on previous years.

Australia was always going to struggle a bit with the inclusion of the Rebels but that should diminish over the next couple of years. I can't see the Waratahs having as terrible a season next year so I think things will even up a bit compared to this year.

I think the conference system is good for the competition in terms of creating local derbies which attract more interest. Whilst having the strongest overall conference can make it harder, the fact that your teams are better should also make them more likely to win the whole competition. I don't see the fact that the Australian conference was really weak this year as being a reason to say that the system is broken.

the big issue with comparing conference strength is that is is a guessing game at best.
Hypothetically if you had a conference that had Chiefs, Stormers, Sharks, Bulls and Hurricanes as its teams they would each eat into other teams victories. I would imagine a conference like this would have a lot of teams with a 50% winning record. 50% is pretty ordinary, so would this be a weak conference?

I dont think the aussie teams are that weak. We just lack depth, one or two injuries really hurts our sides. If we had all our first XV's on the field I think we would finish a lot higher.

The Reds next year with Cooper and Horwill back should be able to finish even higher.
Brumbies with Lealifano back and newly added confidence should do even better next year
Tahs are losing close-games, they have a few wallabies back Mitchell, Turner etc. Should not be as disappointing next year.
Rebels with Higgers, and a fit JOC, Beale next year, they are slowing building a nice team
Force - Are not the weakest team in the comp.

This year id say was a very dissppointing year with injuries. Remember we are down to our 4th choice flyhalf for the wallabies, and we have a lot of depth at winger with JOC, Digby, Mitchell, Turner, Tomane, but we had so many injuries we had to pick Vuna.

So id say things are looking up next year, senior players returning to full fitness, plus the players who replaced them now have much needed super rugby experience. I see a lot more depth next season.

Conference strength can be estimated by counting the wins outside of the conference. Not by looking at how they play against one another - as relative strength means they cancel each other out - on average.

Your point about stronger teams "eating each other" is exactly what happened in the NZ and to a lesser extent the SA conference.

I've been thinking about this.

In reality, the Reds finished sixth over the Brumbies, due to more wins. But they only got 58 points. I think a fairer way of finding the order of the top six is to use competition points alone rather than the contrived set-up we have at the moment where the conference winners get the top three spots.

When you think about it, the Reds, as last qualifier, should be travelling to Christchurch this weekend.

Welcome to the 483rd thread on this

You're a shit troll, bro.

Doesn't Planet Rugby have a rule about trolling other rugby forums?

I think the conference system is most unfair to the Lions. As they have to play the Bulls, Sharks and Stormers more, how can they expect to make the finals? Not to mention that they have to constantly duke it out with the Cheetahs. And that is the most unfair part of it all. Now the Cheetahs have started to show some improvement, how can the Lions ever possibly hope to get ahead, when they are shackled by the conference system?

I recommend a 15 way home and away style playoff. Not sure who the 15th team plays, need to tease this out some more before I write to SANZAR.

I would suggest that we create another team of up and comers, and call them the 'bye'. In a similar fashion to the barbarians, they wouldn't have a home ground, but instead travel to their designated oppositions home ground every week.

Yes that could work, I had started thinking about introducing a third team in each game, we could just change the markings on the field to make a third try line.

I think that might work better than the bye! I would have the third team playing sideways though. So it would pan out something like "Crusaders vs Chiefs, with the Stormers playing sideways". The touchline could be the try line for the third team. That way, teams save money on linemarking.