SOME Antipodeans just can鈥檛 seem to accept that England won the rugby union World Cup. Hugh Morton, a statistician at Massey University in New Zealand, says his analysis of all 48 games shows that 鈥� surprise, surprise 鈥� his country鈥檚 own team, the All Blacks, was really the best performer, followed by Australia鈥檚 Wallabies, with the English coming in third.
Morton鈥檚 system for allocating points is strikingly different to the one used for the official rankings. Instead of giving a flat four points for a win, his system takes into account a variety of factors, such as whether a win was narrow or large, and whether the team beat a top-ranked opponent or a low-rated team. If a team plays badly in a match, it may even lose points accumulated in previous games.
If you鈥檙e English, you鈥檙e probably thinking that this is a wonderful example of a pointless exercise 鈥� it鈥檚 the team that wins on the day that matters. But don鈥檛 tell the Australians that. Stories about statistics don鈥檛 make headlines too often, but the local media were quick to seize on these results. 鈥淪tats boffin has news for England鈥�, ran a gleeful headline on Fox Sports Australia鈥檚 website.
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But Morton believes he might even have been a little too generous to the side that came second in the cup, after beating the All Blacks in the semi-finals. 鈥淏ecause all games were played in Australia, they benefited from a home advantage, whereas all others were away games. Arguably, the rating for Australia should be reduced,鈥� he says 鈥� giving New Zealand an even clearer lead.