How accurate were our predictions?

Tuesday 17 Jul 2018

SUPER RUGBY SPOTLIGHT: Early this year – late January and early February – the @#rugby365 team took a punt and predicted what the tournament standings would look like.

Now, five months later, we look back at those predictions to see if we got a pass mark.

We got a couple of calls badly wrong, but the majority of them were accurate.

On the conference standings we achieve a 60 percent accuracy and for the overall standings, our predictions look like we may be even higher – once the forthcoming play-offs are completed.

The biggest surprise was the Jaguares.

We suggested they would be last in the SA conference and 11th overall. They finished second in the conference and seventh overall.

The other surprise was the Chiefs – who finished third in the New Zealand conference (we said fifth) and third overall (we said mid-table).

Take a look at our predictions and the standings after 19 rounds of league action!

Pre-season predictions:

Crusaders: Overall – Champions; NZ conference: First
Hurricanes: Overall – Semifinalists; NZ conference: Second
Highlanders: Overall – Mid-table; NZ conference: Third
Blues: Overall – Mid-table; NZ conference: Fourth
Chiefs: Overall – Mid-table; NZ conference: Fifth

Lions: Overall – Second; SA Conference: First
Sharks: Overall – Sixth; SA Conference: Second
Stormers: Overall – Seventh; SA Conference: Third
Bulls: Overall – Ninth; SA Conference: Fourth
Jaguares: Overall – 11th; SA Conference: Fifth

Waratahs: Overall – Third; Aus conference: First
Brumbies: Overall – 10th; Aus conference: Second
Rebels: Overall – Just outside top 10; Aus conference: Third
Reds: Overall – 13th; Aus conference: Fourth
Sunwolves: Overall – 15th; Aus conference: Fifth