Field Theory: Four Years Ago
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3410,
They argue that it's countered by the "choke" factor, but the home ground advantage for the ABs is really pronounced
Sorry, but the choke factor is also really pronounced.
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Checking that Le Post article, Hadyn, I saw they picked up on something you didn't, namely: "...New Zealand dominates a key stat: balloons recovered after plating."
If I believe a Google translation of a French paper's analysis of a post written by you, then as we train for such bizarre occurences on a rugby field, rather than boring things like scrums and tackling and such like, is it any wonder we lose? I can only hope Graham Henry has learnt something in the last four years.
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3410,
I can only hope Graham Henry has learnt something in the last four years.
I heard him on the news the other day say that he's learned not to take it one game at a time. I still don't understand that.
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Tongan chic...
And now Tonga is making the bookies nervous.
I'd be worried too. If I recall rightly, the Tongans have given away a lot of penalties in the past, if they can curb that habit, and capitalise on their phenomenal support (it is after all virtually a home game for them!) they could be away laughing. As you say they did well last cup, they impressively held their own against South Africa... copracetic, man!
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3410,
Anyway, my point was that "favourites" ≠ "should win".
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Treppenwitz der Weltgeschichte...
“…New Zealand dominates a key stat:
balloons recovered after plating.”...is that like the Hindenberg?
Der Lead Zeppelin ist der stairway to Heaven! -
SteveH, in reply to
Sorry, but the choke factor is also really pronounced.
The choke is pretty well impossible to quantify. Which games exactly constitute a choke? Which games count as a possible choke that was avoided? And even if we can agree on that how many games does that leave us in our sample?
The home ground advantage is based on a good sample size and it clearly statistically significant.
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Sacha, in reply to
is that like the Hindenberg?
I am a sausage
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3410,
The choke is pretty well impossible to quantify.
No, it's not. All you have to do is compare predicted World Cup performance with actual World Cup performance (and if predicted performance is too difficult to quantify, then we shouldn't be bothering with this discussion at all :)).
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Which games exactly constitute a choke?
choking on the cup itself rather than its contents.
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FletcherB, in reply to
No, we don’t.
According to that article....
1) No team is likely to win... they all have a probability of less than half.
2) the All Blacks probability of winning, despite being lower than 50%, is still higher than double any other team.
I would suggest that #2 makes more sense than #1, seeing as, it's impossible for no team to win the cup.
Going by history alone, Aus and SA have two wins apiece, and yet their statistical probability of winning is radically different.
I suggest the main conclusion to be drawn is that historical performance is obviously important, a purely mathematical reckoning is not necessarily the best approach to predicting the outcome.
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If Argentina or Scotland beat England (possible), then we would have England in the quarters and that is more losable than the 1.00 rating Argentina and Scotland get.
Remember, the last world cup we would never have been up against France in the quarters if not for the fact that Argentina upset France in the opening game. I bet nobody realised the ramifications of that game.
We could well have had an easier quarter, and then clicked from there.
On a random note. I saw some highlights of previous WCs today (was showing them in class to students) and the famous French try to knock Aussie out in 87 featured a nice knockon in the immediate leadup, and the Samoa upset of Wales in 91 saw a try awarded to Samoa when clearly the Welsh defender won the race to ground the ball. Samoa only won 16-13.
I guess we can't lay claim to the only shithouse reffing decisions in RWC history that resulted in our team being arsed out.
I think Aussie or NZ will win it. SA and England could well make the final though as the back end of the tournament will surely feature an upset or two. But they have the look about them of a runnerup. There's only been one upset in the final of a WC IMHO and that was in 95 but that was fairly wide open though. Most other finals have featured one of the expected finalists and one surprise (and they generally lose).
So a NZ v OZ final will probably be a surprise.
I have no idea what I am talking about.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
LS in weinerland...
I am a sausage
assuage salami
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In individual games Fletcher there is always a team that is more likely to win and in the ABs cases MUCH more likely to win. So if they lose it's a 'choke' in that game, and it only takes one loss to knock you out in the back half of this tournament.
Not that I like to use the word much as there are few GENUINE cases of choking despite the widespread use of the word.
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3410,
According to that article....
1) No team is likely to win... they all have a probability of less than half.
2) the All Blacks probability of winning, despite being lower than 50%, is still higher than double any other team.
I would suggest that #2 makes more sense than #1, seeing as, it's impossible for no team to win the cup.
#1 makes perfect sense, just as when you propose to roll a die, each number is "unlikely" to appear (only 1/6th chance), yet it is certain that one of them will.
a purely mathematical reckoning is not necessarily the best approach to predicting the outcome.
What's a better approach; hunches? guesswork? tea leaves?
Just kidding. I think I get that you're saying that there are too many variables for prediction to be a very useful endeavour. I agree, but that lends more credence - not less - to the idea that it's foolish to claim that the All Blacks should win. It's a competition; anything could happen.
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Since I live in Mangere, I will be supporting my local team. Tonga. I invite you all to come down to the Fan Zone (tm) and join me. Actually, the Mangere centre is a pretty good space to be in to be watching any of the island games. Alcohol free, which I was initially skeptical of, but the level of enthusiasm here is well beyond what alcohol could deliver...
According to that article….
1) No team is likely to win… they all have a probability of less than half.
2) the All Blacks probability of winning, despite being lower than 50%, is still higher than double any other team.
I would suggest that #2 makes more sense than #1, seeing as, it’s impossible for no team to win the cup.
I haven't read the article. I will in a moment, but just wanted to make a simple point about probabilities. A team must win the cup; the sum of probabilities is 1. If all teams were equal, their probability would be .05. Obviously, the All Blacks are ranked higher than others, but were they to have a better than even chance >.5, all other teams would share the other .5. They're not that outsize.
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Okay, that article is rubbish.
0.472 + 0.213 + 0.133 + 0.077 + 0.061 + 0.027 + 0.009 + 0.008 + 0.008 = 1.00800
I don’t care too much how they came to their assumptions. You simply can’t give Tonga and Samoa non-zero values. In a knockout competition that’s an untenable assumption, and giving zero values to the remaining eleven teams is also questionable.
But the fact that they sum to more than one shows that their model is broken.
I'm not a stats/probability geek. But literally the first thing they teach you is that the sum of all sample points must equal one.
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Is all rubbish. This talk about choking and what not.
Or at least it doesn't mean anything other than that the ABs are what this little party is always about.
Think about it.
If you are any other coach in the world, when the draw gets announced, the first thing you do is work out when you are destined to meet the ABs.
Everything else is secondary that. You hope like hell that it's the final; if only because that increases the odds that some other bastard will knock the ABs out for you.
Your game plan for the cup is your game plan for beating the ABs. For every ten minutes you spend on analysing other teams you spend an hour on the ABs.
No wonder we have a high 'choke' history. Every team we play, sees that game as their final. We don't have that luxury. We can't. We can say we do, and get the psychologists into the lads' heads to try and make it so, but it's fake. For our opponents it's real.
The ABs meet every team at their best. It's the game they pull it all out for. It's the game their players have dreamed about since they were kids.
It's a good thing for us. Let 'em laugh and troll about choking and what have you. We know. They know.
We own this tournament, even if we don't 'win' it.
And has been noted, we've never lost a single world cup game on home soil. Not one. So chin up.
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I completely lost my rugby mojo during that game 4 years ago. Since then I’ve barely watched a Super whatever-it-is-now game, and only watch tests from behind a cushion through my fingers these days.
Sad really. I used to love watching the ABs thrashing everyone in sight.
I remember having great arguments with the poms on The Guardian’s Comment is Free threads during the last WC – especially when they brought up the old “you guys steal the best players from all the other Pacific nations" and “you’re a bunch of chokers” chestnuts.
“We are so NOT chokers!” I would rant, stamping my tiny feet in disgust. “Best team we’ve ever had blah blah blah”. “I think we can win it this time yadda yadda”
*sigh*
I haven’t even visited Comment is Free this time. See – no mojo left at all.
Tell me when it’s safe to come out from behind my cushion, will you?
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3410,
0.472 + 0.213 + 0.133 + 0.077 + 0.061 + 0.027 + 0.009 + 0.008 + 0.008 = 1.00800
Rounding to three decimal places presumably accounts for the minuscule overlap.
The key point - and forgive me for repeating myself - is this: Just because the All Blacks are the favourites, does not mean that they will probably win the competition.
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And has been noted, we’ve never lost a single world cup game on home soil. Not one.
There was a notable absence last time.
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Alex Coleman, in reply to
Not sure I’m following you Chris.
Not World Cup games, not at home, not ABs.
IN any case, my point was a silly one, but I stand by it none the less. It’s no more silly a record than the ‘choking’ one.
Edit: Oh. I see now. The fact that SA wasn't here is by the by. They weren't here. And a good thing too.
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It’s no more silly a record than the ‘choking’ one.
True, I enjoyed your explanation above, nice perspective.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Just kidding. I think I get that you're saying that there are too many variables for prediction to be a very useful endeavour.
To any person who likes to gamble, it's useful to do it with numbers. If you can do this kind of actuarial analysis, and the crowd of punters can't, and the odds flip all over the place, you can probably make good money on average by doing exactly that kind of analysis, and picking your time to bet. In fact, if you can work out the baselines of all the teams you can pick the right time to bet on all of them, and make certain money.
I made this probability point 22 days ago but without all the lovely probabilities in a table. Good find, 3410. I'm surprised that they rate us so high, really. Us having a 47% chance of winning seems impossibly high.
If we do win, I'm pretty sure that will also instantly make us the most successful team of all time in RWCs, all results considered. I hope that happens and the poms can choke on their choking comments.
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against "tier 1" teams we win 81.2% at home vs 67.3% away
A huge number of tier 1 teams send their second or third string to NZ for tours. We beat France here because they almost never send a top team. Every nation fields it's best at home and for the RWC.
You simply can’t give Tonga and Samoa non-zero values.
Yes you can, those just might describe that one of those teams would win about once every 250 years, by stringing together 3 very close, very lucky wins after scraping through the pool (presumably, as other top teams suffer much worse injury and their small pool of talent stays fit, gets a lot of the bounce, and the ones they can't beat go out to someone else).
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