Our crystal ball works... well, sort of
We at rugby365 pride ourselves on knowing our rugby and are always ready to stick our necks out when it comes to prediction time. But how have we done with our match-by-match predictions during the 2011 Rugby World Cup?
We have had plenty of chances to practice our predictions over the past few weeks and we’re happy to report that we have had a success rate of 78% – purely in terms of picking the correct winner.
That means that of the 46 World Cup games we’ve seen so far, we have correctly called the result for 36 of those.
Eat your heart out Nostradamus!
However, we did get ten of those calls incorrect and the lads who made those predictions will be called into the office and dealt with, quite possibly by giving the offenders some Peter de Villiers quotes to ‘translate’. We take our rugby seriously at rugby365.com HQ.
Our first weekend of predictions went well, with us getting all of our results, if not the margins of victory, correct.
But we got cocky and we ignored the signs in the crystal ball and the form book, telling ourselves that it was too early for there to be an upset. And then Canada went and beat Tonga.
“We are backing the Tongans to win by about five points,” is what we said. Canada won by five, beating Tonga 25-20.
Thus humbled, we went back to the drawing board, ditched the crystal ball and used the tea leaves instead. That gave us a five-game streak of correct predictions before the Irish threw that proverbial spanner in the works and wrecked our run with their win over Australia.
We said: “Australia to win by more than 20 points.” Ireland beat the Wallabies by nine. There was much celebration in the office, until we realised that Ireland had just messed up the pool and that their win had set the Australians on a collision course with South Africa in the quarterfinals. We hadn’t seen that coming. Doh!
We also didn’t see Wales rebounding from their loss to South Africa and beating Samoa 17-10. We had picked Samoa to win by five points.
Well, after much hand-wringing and soul-searching, we got our mojo back and got the next 12 results right before Canada came up on our radar again. No one could have foreseen this result and if you did, well done. We picked Canada to beat Japan by five points but the two sides conspired to play to a 23-all draw – their previous RWC meeting having also ended in a draw.
So far Canada had bent us over twice and Tonga joined in the fun with their win over the French. We were backing France to win by 15 points or more but they hardly got out of first gear and lost to Tonga by five points.
Another side that clearly had it in for us were the Irish. In their final pool game against Italy we had backed Nick Mallett’s boys to get their maiden win over Ireland by five points. So much for sentimentality, as Ireland won by 30 points.
In the quarterfinals we got half the results correct. Surprisingly, one brave soul went for the Australia win and got it right. It was the the two northern hemisphere quarterfinals that tripped us up. Badly.
We had backed the Irish to beat the Welsh, but they must have read our predictions and just decided to be contrary. We said Ireland to win by five – finally backing them! – but the Welsh laughed all the way to the semifinals with a 12-point victory margin.
Now we really didn’t want to see a winner in the England-France game. That’s how bad we thought they were. But we had to choose a winner and we went with England.
“England may be boring, but that approach should beat France by five or less,” is what we said. The French won. By seven points. Ugh.
The French did it to us again in their semifinal against Wales. We backed Wales to smash the French by 15 points but France came away with the win by a single point. (We actually got both of our semifinal picks incorrect!)
While we are proud of our near 80% success rate at our predictions during the tournament, we have learned not to dismiss the French out of hand.
They are only predictable in that they are unpredictable. So with the French in the final against New Zealand, whatever our predictions are, go the other way, folks!
Our predictions record during the 2011 World Cup:
Pool stages:
New Zealand v Tonga
Our prediction: New Zealand by 50 points
Actual score: New Zealand 41 Tonga 10
Scotland v Romania
Our prediction: Scotland by 20 points
Actual score: Scotland 34 Romania 24
Fiji v Namibia
Our prediction: Fiji by 40 points
Actual score: Fiji 49 Namibia 25
France v Japan
Our prediction: France by 35 points
Actual score: France 47 Japan 21
England v Argentina
Our prediction: England by 10 points
Actual score: England 13 Argentina 9
Australia v Italy
Our prediction: Australia by 15 points
Actual score: Australia 32 Italy 6
Ireland v USA
Our prediction: Ireland by 20 points
Actual score: Ireland 22 USA 10
South Africa v Wales
Our prediction: South Africa by 5 points
Actual score: South Africa 17 Wales 16
Samoa v Namibia
Our prediction: Samoa by 30 points
Actual score: Samoa 49 Namibia 12
Tonga v Canada
Our prediction: Tonga by 5 points
Actual score: Tonga 20 Canada 25
Scotland v Georgia
Our prediction: Scotland by 10 points
Actual score: Scotland 15 Georgia 6
Russia v USA
Our prediction: USA by 15 points
Actual score: Russia 6 USA 13
NZ v Japan
Our prediction: NZ by more than 40 points
Actual score: NZ 87 Japan 3
Argentina v Romania
Our prediction: Argentina by 20 points
Actual score: Argentina 43 Romania 8
South Africa v Fiji
Our prediction: South Africa by 15 points
Actual score: South Africa 49 Fiji 3
Australia v Ireland
Our prediction: Australia by more than 20 points
Actual score: Australia 6 Ireland 15
Wales v Samoa
Our prediction: Samoa by 5 points
Actual score: Wales 17 Samoa 10
England v Georgia
Our prediction: England by 20 points
Actual score: England 41 Georgia 10
France v Canada
Our prediction: France by 25 points
Actual score: France 46 Canada 19
Italy v Russia
Our prediction: Italy by 10 points
Actual score: Italy 53 Russia 17
Tonga v Japan
Our prediction: Tonga by 5 points
Actual score: Tonga 31 Japan 18
SA v Namibia
Our prediction: South Africa by between 40 and 140 points
Actual score: SA 87 Namibia 0
Australia v USA
Our prediction: Australia by 60 points
Actual score: Australia 67 USA 5
England v Romania
Our prediction: England by 35 points
Actual score: England 67 Romania 3
New Zealand v France
Our prediction: New Zealand by 15 points
Actual score: New Zealand 37 France 17
Fiji v Samoa
Our prediction: Samoa by 8 points
Actual score: Fiji 27 Samoa 7
Ireland v Russia
Our prediction: Ireland by 30 points
Actual score: Ireland 62 Russia 12
Argentina v Scotland
Our prediction: Argentina by 7 points
Actual score: Argentina 13 Scotland 12
Wales v Namibia
Our prediction: Wales by 30 points
Actual score: Wales 81 Namibia 7
Canada v Japan
Our prediction: Canada by more than 5 points
Actual score: Canada 23 Japan 23
Italy v USA
Our prediction: Italy by 15 points
Actual score: Italy 27 USA 10
Georgia v Romania
Our prediction: Romania by 5 points
Actual score: Georgia 25 Romania 9
South Africa v Samoa
Our prediction: South Africa by 15 points
Actual score: South Africa 13 Samoa 5
Australia v Russia
Our prediction: Wales by more than 50 points
Actual score: Australia 68 Russia 22
France v Tonga
Our prediction: France by 15 points
Actual score: France 14 Tonga 19
England v Scotland
Our prediction: England by less than 7 points
Actual score: England 16 Scotland 12
Argentina v Georgia
Our prediction: Wales by more than 15 points
Actual score: Argentina 25 Georgia 7
New Zealand v Canada
Our prediction: New Zealand by 60 points
Actual score: New Zealand 79 Canada 15
Wales v Fiji
Our prediction: Wales by more than 30 points
Actual score: Wales 66 Fiji 0
Ireland v Italy
Our prediction: Italy by less than 5 points
Actual score: Ireland 36 Italy 6
Quarterfinals:
Ireland v Wales
Our prediction: Ireland by 5 points
Actual score: Ireland 10 Wales 22
England v France
Our prediction: England by 5 points
Actual score: England 12 France 19
South Africa v Australia
Our prediction: Australia by more than 7 points
Actual score: South Africa 9 Australia 11
New Zealand v Argentina
Our prediction: New Zealand by 15 points
Actual score: New Zealand 33 Argentina 10
Semifinals:
Wales v France
Our prediction: Wales by 15 points
Actual score: Wales 8 France 9
New Zealand v Australia
Our prediction: Australia by 2 points
Actual score: New Zealand 20 Australia 6
By Zunaid Ismael
