Posts from March 2012 (64)

March 1, 2012

NRL Predictions, Week 1

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I will be producing predictions for the NRL this year as well as for the Super 15.

Ratings at the Beginning of the 2012 NRL Season

Here are the team ratings at the start of the NRL season.


Rating
Sea Eagles 9.83
Broncos 5.57
Warriors 5.28
Storm 4.63
Wests Tigers 4.52
Dragons 4.36
Knights 0.77
Roosters 0.25
Rabbitohs 0.04
Cowboys -1.32
Bulldogs -1.86
Panthers -3.40
Eels -4.23
Sharks -7.97
Raiders -8.40
Titans -11.80

 

Predictions for Round 1

I got caught out with the game starting tonight. I thought I had another day before producing my predictions. Anyway, here are the predictions for Round 1. The prediction is my estimated points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

 

Game Date Winner Prediction
1 Knights vs. Dragons Mar 01 Knights 0.90
2 Eels vs. Broncos Mar 02 Broncos -5.30
3 Raiders vs. Storm Mar 03 Storm -8.50
4 Panthers vs. Bulldogs Mar 03 Panthers 3.00
5 Cowboys vs. Titans Mar 03 Cowboys 15.00
6 Warriors vs. Sea Eagles Mar 04 Sea Eagles -0.00
7 Wests Tigers vs. Sharks Mar 04 Wests Tigers 17.00
8 Rabbitohs vs. Roosters Mar 05 Rabbitohs 4.30

 

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Super 15 Predictions, Round 2

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Team Ratings for Week 2

Here are the team ratings prior to Week 2, along with the ratings at the start of the season. Interestingly for 3 teams the ratings have not changed. That is because the Rebels had a bye, and for the Stormers versus Hurricanes, I got the margin correct (rounded to 2 decimal places). My predicted margin was also very close for the Brumbies versus Force game.


Current Rating Rating at Season Start
Crusaders 10.29 10.46
Stormers 6.59 6.59
Reds 5.71 5.03
Waratahs 4.30 4.98
Bulls 3.94 4.16
Blues 3.04 2.87
Sharks 1.10 0.87
Hurricanes -1.90 -1.90
Cheetahs -2.01 -1.46
Chiefs -2.21 -1.17
Highlanders -4.65 -5.69
Force -4.89 -4.95
Brumbies -6.72 -6.66
Lions -10.27 -10.82
Rebels -15.64 -15.64

 

Performance So Far

So far there have been 7 matches played, 4 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 57.1%.

Here are the predictions for the games so far.

Game Date Score Prediction Correct
1 Blues vs. Crusaders Feb 20 18 – 19 -3.10 TRUE
2 Brumbies vs. Force Feb 20 19 – 17 2.80 TRUE
3 Bulls vs. Sharks Feb 20 18 – 13 7.80 TRUE
4 Chiefs vs. Highlanders Feb 20 19 – 23 9.00 FALSE
5 Waratahs vs. Reds Feb 20 21 – 25 4.40 FALSE
6 Stormers vs. Hurricanes Feb 20 39 – 26 13.00 TRUE
7 Lions vs. Cheetahs Feb 20 27 – 25 -4.90 FALSE

 

Predictions for Week 2

Here are the predictions for Week 2. The prediction is my estimated points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

Game Date Winner Prediction
1 Chiefs vs. Blues Mar 20 Blues -0.70
2 Rebels vs. Waratahs Mar 20 Waratahs -15.40
3 Lions vs. Hurricanes Mar 20 Hurricanes -3.90
4 Highlanders vs. Crusaders Mar 20 Crusaders -10.40
5 Reds vs. Force Mar 20 Reds 15.10
6 Cheetahs vs. Bulls Mar 20 Bulls -1.40
7 Stormers vs. Sharks Mar 20 Stormers 10.00

 

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Grandma got run over by a reindeer

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During the Christmas news-deficiency season there was a story warning people to be careful around all the dangerous holiday accident risks.  Our Stat of the Week award went  to Sonia Pollak, who pointed out that 3040 accidents predicted for Christmas Day was quite a bit lower than the average for other days.

The story has returned in the past tense.  The ACC is reporting 3238 accident claims for Christmas Day (close to what they predicted, about 25% lower than an average day) and $850,000 in claims.  Even assuming that the initial claims relate only to medical treatment, that’s about half of the average daily expenditure  (medical treatment, $512 million/yr, hospital treatment – $199.3 million/yr)

We could prevent accidents and save money by being especially careful on Christmas Day.  But we could probably prevent more accidents and save more money by being especially careful on some other day, such as the anniversary of some significant historical accident.  I suggest June 14.

 

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Last chance to enter our Stat of the Summer competition – add yours!

There’s still a little more time to add your nominations for the Stat of the Summer competition, and here’s the most recent two nominations from Tony Cooper:

Divided Auckland – NZ Herald series

“it was flawed because they assumed as truth something that is only a hypothesis and assumed that correlation implies causation (that inequality causes poverty”

Read his full nomination »

West Coast/Buller among the happiest regions

“The thing that struck me as odd, almost humorous, about this story which reports that West Coast/Buller is the happiest region in NZ is that in 2008 the survey reported the same region as the LEAST happiest. Surely the region hasn’t changed that much in that little time!

My best guess is that this is an example of getting the sampling error wrong.”

Read his full nomination »

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