With Queensland’s 2013 GPS Rugby season over the halfway point, it seemed an appropriate time to unleash the official* Power Rankings for the season thus far.
For those of you who aren’t close followers of the coverage and analysis of the major American sports leagues like the NFL, the NBA, and the MLB, the concept of power rankings is quite simple. A knowledgeable analyst will present his opinion on the teams in the current best form, and will place them in rank order accordingly.
This analysis can be based off speculation, or it can be based off statistics and formulae to mathematically calculate each team’s form relative to each other.
I’ve done some tampering to create a formula appropriate to the GPS built on the shoulders of ESPN’s John Hollinger’s NBA Power Rankings formula. 
Hollinger’s Power Ranking metric has 4 basic parameters;
- Score margin (Points differential/games played),
- Home wins(home wins/home games),
- Away wins (away wins/away games), and the
- Strength of each team’s schedule (sum of opponents winning percentages/games played.)
Hollinger’s Formula places more weight on the last 10 games for each of those 4 parameters. In my formula, I’ve reduced the last 10 games to 3, and divided all all other values included in the formula by 3 to compensate, maximising mathematical accuracy.
Who will end up as the GPS’s most statistically powerful team at the mid-way point? The answer may surprise you.. Press the right arrow key to find out!
Beware of Geeks bearing formulas.
*N.B – Statistics, while interesting, can be misleading. As said by Warren Buffet above, these stastistics are not the be all and end all, and many teams are playing much better Rugby than their Hollinger Ranking would indicate.
In saying that, do you disagree with your team’s ranking? Let me know in the comments section!
