Blues & Sunwolves both winners this weekend
Sonny Bill getting back in the mix
Sunwolves first Super Rugby win in Australia

Super Rugby Round 8
 

A number of teams in Round 7 seemed determined to show that past lack of form didn’t mean anything. The Sunwolves were disappointing at home in Round 6, at exactly the time they needed to show they belonged in Super Rugby. In Round 7 they changed course and beat the Waratahs away, a week after the same Waratahs had beaten the Crusaders. The Rebels lost both games in South Africa in Rounds 5 and 6. They returned home and had an honest team meeting about their dismal performances. They decided to step up in Round 7 and they did just that by beating the Reds away.

Having lost to the Waratahs in round 6, the Crusaders returned to form in round 7, beating the Hurricanes. It was great to see Sonny Bill, a true sportsman, have a winning game with the much-improved Blues.

Home advantage ceased to exit in Round 7 as five of six visitors won.

Let’s see what surprises round 8 has in store for us.

Ray Stefani

Highlanders v Hurricanes tonight should be a bottler
Hurricanes narrow win their round 4 clash

Super Rugby Round 9
 

Value bets were cashed in round 8 by supporters of the Reds, Sharks and Blues. Congrats to the improved Rebels who stand second in the combined table and to the Blues who stand fifth. The Jaguars couldn’t win at home in round 7 but scored late to beat the Bulls away in round 8. Never give up!

Good luck with round 9,

Ray Stefani

Thanks to the brilliance of Ardie Savea,,Hurricanes scrap home in a thriller

Super Rugby Round 10
 

The inconsistent Jaguars have played 8 games and only played as expected in 3. Fortunately, we can’t be surprised this week: they aren’t playing.

In round 9, Stormers and Brumbies supporters cashed value bets.

In round 10, the Highlanders-Blues game ought to be a great one to watch.

Good luck with round 10,

Ray Stefani

Yes looking forward to the game Ray
Blues won their last encounter 33-26
Highlanders have lost five straight but they've been competitive

Super Rugby Round 11
 

Round 10 was a winner. On one hand, only three of my six favourites won. On the other hand, the one holding the money, underdog wins in two of those games by the Lions and Reds made for winning value bets. The other winning value bet (making it three from three) went to Waratahs supporters.

Good luck with round 11.

Ray Stefani

Super Rugby Round 12
 

The Sunwolves are hard to understand. We chatted about the idea that dropping the Sunwolves could be a loss of potential revenue in that Asia could become a rugby hotbed after the 2020 Olympics. To help their cause, the Sunwolves had a 2-2 record playing away. The problem is that they have rewarded their home fans with a 0-6 record, including their 0-52 loss in round 11. They are hopelessly unpredictable.

At least the Sharks and Jaguars did reward their supporters with cashed value bets.

Good luck with round 12.

Ray Stefani

Super Rugby Round 13
 

Round 12 went well. My favourites won 5 and tied 2. The Brumbies supporters cashed a value bet.

There are some massive matchups in lucky round 13.

Good luck,

Ray Stefani

Super Rugby Round 14
 

I called last round “lucky” round 13. I don’t like to be superstitious, because that would be bad luck, right? On the other hand, the 30% profit on turnover for value bets got adjusted to 12%.

To illustrate how unpredictable this season has been, look at the table. Six teams are within one point, going from third to eighth place. The Lions are the ninth-place team, making them one off from playoff status, even though they have a score differential of -54. There is nothing boring about Super Rugby.

Good luck with round 14.

Ray Stefani

Super Rugby Round 15
 

The crazy season moves on. For example, the Lions stand fifth in the composite table, but have the 13th best score difference.

The Bulls and Blues supporters cashed winning value bets in round 14.

I will be away for a week, so I will not be able to bring you round 16 predictions.

Good luck with round 15.

Ray Stefani

Super Rugby Round 17
 

When I returned from my trip, I had to double check the round 16 scores. I thought that I might have taken scores from the wrong year (or universe).

In round 16, favourites only won 2 from 7 after winning 6 from 7 in round 15. Did the Crusaders really lose 40-27? Assuming they really did and not in a parallel universe, here is round 17.

Good luck with round 17 of a crazy season.

Ray Stefani

Sure did Ray. Big effort by the Chiefs over the final bit. Crusaders led 27-19 at the 43 min mark. They obviously wanted the win more. Now sitting just outside the top 8. Hope they get there. Have a bye next week,,Rebels final round.

NZ off to a good start in the U20 World Rugby Championship being held in Argentina
NZ 45 Georgia 13

France the defending champions
Australia also off to a good start
Australia 36 Italy 12

Super Rugby Round 18
 

In round 17, the Crusaders placed a 66-0 exclamation point on their season after that loss in round 16.

This is an exciting time for many sports. We have, or will have shortly, World Cups in Cricket, FIFA Women’s Soccer, Rugby and Netball. The Rugby U 20 is fun to watch.

I am sending my predictions for round 18, before the playoffs to come. I will be away for the rest of the Super Rugby season so I wish everyone the best. I estimate 15% profit on turnover for this really crazy season. The Jaguars proved that they belong while the Sunwolves proved that they don’t.

Cheers to all,

Ray Stefani

U20 World Rugby Championship
Australia into the final will be up against France
NZ to playoff for 7th spot :(

Rugby World Cup just around the corner
Being held in Japan from 20 September to 2 November
This will be the first time the tournament is to be held in Asia
Will be the ninth Rugby World Cup
Reigning champions New Zealand

$2.30 is about the best you can get for the All Blacks at the moment
Pool B for NZ against South Africa,,Italy,,Namibia & Canada

Super Rugby

Down to the final four, Crusaders $1.48, Hurricanes $7, Jaguares $8 & Brumbies $13.50

Super Rugby

Jaguares $1.60 v Brumbies $2.45
Crusaders $1.26 v Hurricanes $4.40

$17.50 available for the Aussies

Gee the Hurricanes gave the Crusaders a bit of a scare. Was a good game.

It was a good game Sands,,shame the draw didn't allow for a double-sided NZ final

Junior Wallabies unlucky
France 24 Australia 23

Baby Blacks took 7th spot
NZ 40 Ireland 17

win some,,lose some

Black Ferns 47 Wallaroos 10 :)
Wallabies 47 All Blacks 26:(

EPL Round 2
 

In Round 1, my favourites won 6 of the 7 matches that weren’t drawn. On the other hand, there was a big surprise when Watford lost 0-3 at home to Brighton. Man U had a big win at home over Chelsea 4-0. Man City opened strong away beating West Ham away, 5-0. I mention those matches because my system makes the biggest adjustments early in the season to catch up with team changes. As a result, there were some big up and down adjustments because of the matches I just mentioned. It’s a good idea to be cautious for next two or three weeks to be sure the adjustments were justified.

The Rugby WC is coming. You can check the World Rugby rankings to get an idea what is in store. The higher rated teams have won 86% of the matches in the last 5 Rugby 15s World Cups. Not bad. You can use the same approach they do to convert rating difference into the probability of winning and get fair odds that way. I'll give you the equation as we get closer. The home advantage is worth 3 rating points (for Japan).

Good luck,

Ray Stefani

Sounds good Ray,,cheers

I'm real glad I stopped betting on the ABs.
A draw against the Boks and a loss to the ball sanders, the send off was a yellow only, would have cost me a stack.
The ABs are on the slide, and it may get worse at the quarter-final stage.

Rugby World Cup 2019
 

Now $13 with most bookies

Black Ferns 37 Wallaroos 8
All Blacks 36 Wallabies 0

That's much better :)

Wales are the new rugby world no. 1 ending the 10-year reign of the All Blacks

Current top 10
1. Wales
2. NZ
3. Ireland
4. South Africa
5. England
6. Australia
7. France
8. Scotland
9. Japan
10. Fiji

The World Rugby Ratings
 

Those World Rugby ratings give some really useful info for gambling, much more than just who is ranked higher. World Rugby purposely created the rating system to be predictable. The rating difference is used to get the probability that the higher rated team will beat the lower-rated team, after adding three points to the home team rating. After the game, the ratings are adjusted based on the difference between the actual result and the probability going in. I looked at the last five Rugby WCs. The higher rated teams have won 86% of the non-tied matches. That’s amazing accuracy.

For the WC, add three points to Japan’s rating. Suppose the higher-rated team is d points better. According to World Rugby’s examples, the higher rated team has a probability of winning equal to 0.5 + (d/20). You have to limit that from 0.1 to 0.9.

Let’s look at the current ratings. Wales is tops with 89.43 just barely ahead of NZ with 89.40. That 0.03 advantage means that Wales is .5 + (.03/20) or .5015 likely to beat NZ, making NZ .4985 likely to win. I’d say that’s’ a toss-up. Now, if number 1 Wales (89.43) plays number 3 Ireland (88.69) that 0.74 rating difference means that Wales in .5 + (.74/20) or .537 likely to win. The fair decimal odds would be 1/.537 or 1.86, so you could bet on Wales if is you can find a price of more than 1.86.

When we get closer to the WC, I’ll take the last pre-WC Rugby World ratings and give you the probability of the match-ups in the group phase. We’ll see what that looks like.

Cheers,

Ray Stefani

That would be great Ray, thanks

Rugby WC Group Phase Predictions, from Rugby World Ratings
 

I promised to give you the predictions for the group phase of the Rugby World Cup, as soon as we had the pre-WC ratings from World Rugby. The final ratings are in, so I attached the game-by-game probabilities, using World Rugby’s system, and then the fair decimal odds which are equal to 1/probabilities. According to the World Rugby system, they add three rating points to the home team rating and then find the rating difference of each team’s rating minus the opponent’s rating. The probability that the team will win is:

.5 + (rating difference)/20

There is a problem though. World Rugby has to cap the rating difference at +10 (or -10) to keep the probability between 1 and zero. I decided to make the limit 0.99 and 0.01, because having World Rugby predicting a probability of 1 just makes me crazy, and we don’t want that.

There are Groups A, B, C and D, each with 5 teams playing four games in a round-robin, so each group plays 10 games. Of the 40 games, 24 are maxed out with winning probabilities of 0.99 and 0.01. The other 16 games are much more competitive. I noticed that 7 of 10 Group A games are maxed out, compared to 8 of 10 in Group B, 3 of 10 in Group C and 6 of 10 in Group D. Group C should be the most competitive. There aren’t going to be many games worth betting on, but those will be hugely important, and keep the pubs busy. When we reach the quarter-finals, the rest of the games ought to be close, but World Rugby will not update ratings until after the WC, so we have to use pre-WC ratings. Of course, you could make big money on some big upsets and buy the first round.

Cheers
,
Ray Stefani

Hi Ray

Can you check or confirm the link to the attached document. It won’t let me open the link

Cheers

worked for me

Rugby Worlde Cup Predictions using World Rugby
 

Fatcat had trouble with the link to the predictions. I am going to try to post directly to this text.

Ray Stefani


Rugby WC Predictions Using Rugby World Ratings (Pwin from .01 to .99)
Team Pwin Fair Odds Team Pwin Fair Odds

Group A
Japan 0.99 1.01 Russia 0.01 100.00
Ireland 0.92 1.08 Scotland 0.08 13.07
Russia 0.29 3.49 Samoa 0.71 1.40
Japan 0.01 86.96 Ireland 0.99 1.01
Scotland 0.99 1.01 Samoa 0.01 100.00
Ireland 0.99 1.01 Russia 0.01 100.00
Japan 0.99 1.01 Samoa 0.01 100.00
Scotland 0.99 1.01 Russia 0.01 100.00
Ireland 0.99 1.01 Samoa 0.01 100.00
Japan 0.44 2.30 Scotland 0.57 1.77

Group B
New Zealand 0.60 1.66 South Afr 0.40 2.52
Italy 0.99 1.01 Namibia 0.01 100.00
Italy 0.99 1.01 Canada 0.01 100.00
South Africa 0.99 1.01 Namibia 0.01 100.00
New Zealand 0.99 1.01 Canada 0.01 100.00
South Africa 0.99 1.01 Italy 0.01 100.00
New Zealand 0.99 1.01 Namibia 0.01 100.00
South Africa 0.99 1.01 Canada 0.01 100.00
New Zealand 0.99 1.01 Italy 0.01 100.00
Namibia 0.49 2.02 Canada 0.51 1.98
 
Group C
France 0.67 1.49 Argentina 0.33 3.04
England 0.99 1.01 Tonga 0.01 100.00
England 0.99 1.01 USA 0.01 100.00
Argentina 0.76 1.31 Tonga 0.24 4.21
France 0.88 1.14 USA 0.12 8.13
England 0.99 1.01 Argentina 0.01 100.00
France 0.93 1.07 Tonga 0.07 15.15
Argentina 0.71 1.42 USA 0.29 3.40
England 0.92 1.09 France 0.08 12.58
USA 0.56 1.80 Tonga 0.44 2.26

Group D
Australia 0.83 1.20 Fiji 0.17 5.92
Wales 0.99 1.01 Georgia 0.01 100.00
Fiji 0.99 1.01 Uruguay 0.01 100.00
Georgia 0.91 1.10 Uruguay 0.09 10.58
Australia 0.34 2.97 Wales 0.66 1.51
Georgia 0.29 3.41 Fiji 0.71 1.41
Australia 0.99 1.01 Uruguay 0.01 100.00
Wales 0.99 1.01 Fiji 0.01 100.00
Australia 0.99 1.01 Georgia 0.01 100.00
Wales 0.99 1.01 Uruguay 0.01 100.00