With the Super 14 just around the corner it’s time for those of you who enjoy tipping competitions or putting some money on your favourite teams to start getting ready. This season Sports After Dark is offering a new feature which will help you with those tips, or even to make a little money on the side.

So what are Power Rankings? Power Rankings are often used in the NFL where teams do not play every other team in the league as a means of comparing teams who will never play. They take a lot of factors into consideration such as points scored, points allowed and even the relative strength of the opposition. In the end they are expressed as numbers and the team with the higher ranking is the better team.

My particular ranking algorithm, like most, can predict most results but there will always be some left fielders which completely surprise everyone. Case in point, the Force beating the Blues at home last year, my rankings said the Blues should win easily, as did most other pundits, but then again, if my rankings were perfect I’d be spending a lot of time at my local TAB.

Let’s take a look at an example. At the end of the round robin phase of the Air New Zealand Cup, here are the quarter finalists’ Power Rankings:

Interestingly enough, the Power Rankings put Southland ahead of Bay of Plenty despite the Bay having three more points and one more win than Southland. And who won that quarter final? Southland, by some margin. After the quarter finals it became quite obvious which teams would be contesting the final with Wellington and Canterbury head and shoulders ahead of the rest, and the rankings told this story:

Ahead of the final it was clear the two best teams were playing for the title. Because of the Air New Zealand Cup’s 10 round structure with 14 teams, Wellington and Canterbury had not played each other yet. But using Sport’s After Dark’s Power Rankings it was clear that the game would be extremely close, but Canterbury had a slim advantage.

In the end Canterbury won the final by 7-6 and it doesn’t get much closer than that! Obviously Wellington were a single drop goal away from victory, so don’t be the house when the rankings are this close.

Now, for those of you looking to take advantage of these Power Rankings in an online tipping competition, I highly recommend NZ Virtual Sport’s Super 14 competition. With 94 matches over 16 weeks and 470 points up for grabs there is ample opportunity for all to vie for the title.

If you are looking for something a little more intimate than your standard picks competition then look no further than the Super 14 Challenge matches. Create your own challenge, invite your mates and compete head to head in private challenges or join one of our public challenges. The format of the challenges will follow the Super 14 competition. You will compete in 14 round robin matches and if you make the grade you will progress to the finals.