I think were learned that the official Rugby World rantings are pretty accurate at setting odds. I posted what the fair odds would be, using Rugby World's ratings. If we discounted the fair odds by 10% or so, we got almost exactly the bookmaker odds. There are two sides to that issue though. Maybe the Rugby World ratings do give good probabilities (I put the formula on the odds sheets I posted) OR maybe book makers use the same ratings to set odds that would balance the books if a lot of batters also yanked out their calculators and cranked away at the official Rugby World ratings.

Before the matches started the ratings suggested that NZ should win 6 (they won 5 after being upset by SA); SA should (and did) win 3 (with an upset win and upset loss); Australia should win 3 but won 2 after being upset by Argentina and Argentina should win none but won two in upsets. The higher rated teams won 75% of the matches, which is good prediction. NZ earned four bonuses.

It was definitely exciting.

Ray Stefani