Super 14 Power Rankings Week 11

You’ll have to forgive me if I’m a little confused this week. Looking at NZ Herald’s Power Rankings last week had me scratching my head at the absurdly high ranking of the Blues, but this week has me completely bamboozled. In last week’s Inside The Numbers I pointed out that both the Chiefs and Blues lack wins over semi final contenders at this late stage in the season, yet both teams continue to enjoy high rankings from the Herald.

This is the stage of the season where teams are the bottom of the list cannot be forgiven for what they have done up to now, while teams at the top are asked, “What have you done for me lately?” Despite the Cheetahs and Reds both winning, it’s hard to forgive seven or eight losses out of ten games this late in the season.

But, at the top of the table, how can the Chiefs remain ranked first despite losing? And how can the Crusaders improve their ranking after losing to the bottom ranked team? On a side note, according to my rankings the Crusaders dropped two places after that loss.

Also, how did the Sharks suffer such a big drop (4 places) just for having the bye?

My rankings, based entirely on hard data, are not perfect, but at least they don’t forget teams just because they didn’t play one weekend because of a scheduled break.

In conclusion, I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that to do accurate ranking you need to start with hard data first, then adjust from the gut because ranking solely from the gut leads to ranking based on a couple of recent performances rather than a whole season.

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The Super 14 Power Rankings Week 11 by Hamish McBrearty, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.