Football ranking table

theoneeyedman

Just to acknowledge the efforts of laoisman11, always interesting ratings and plenty more accurate than many of the other top 10 and ranking tables that are often listed in the normal media.

Charles Babbage

"Dishonorable mentions to Cork, Armagh, Antrim and Carlow who all lost more than 3 rating points"

Armagh lost one game by a point, their problem was that their high starting position meant that their victories yielded nothing whatever the margin was. If Monaghan have a similar championship performance to last year, they may well get promoted next year from Div 2 while actually losing rating points.

laoisman11

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121969677#Comment_121969677

It was the draws with Cork and Donegal and the loss to Donegal in the league final that resulted in Armagh losing more than they gained in Division 2. And yes, they started out a lot higher than the other teams.

laoisman11

PREDfullPDF1.pdf

It feels like we've jumped straight into the middle of the championship, with no fewer than 9 games kicking off this weekend.

The full prediction output is attached (minus the NY vs Mayo game because any games involving New York always throw up errors in creating tables, due to the few games they have played).

Two games that deserve attention:

• Meath have been on a downward trend the last few games, whereas Longford have been looking good, apart from the final game against Wexford. Given the big beating that they took against Meath recently in the championship, there might be a shock on the cards here
• Forever the underdogs, Waterford do not ever seem to fear Tipperary in either league or championship. Could be a lot closer than 4 points.

dxhound2005

Nine games, Monaghan v Cavan. And if Home/Away is of any consequence to predictions, the Westmeath Wicklow game is in Portlaoise.

laoisman11

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972781#Comment_121972781

Thanks! It was in the PDF but didn't come out in the table; updated now!

laoisman11

Some nice shocks to get the championship started!

• Cavan's bonus point win over Monaghan sees them gain a massive 6.9 rating points, and they climb 5 places in the rankings; Monaghan, meanwhile, drop 5 places to 16th, their lowest rank since April 2013
• Wicklow took many by surprise by overcoming Westmeath - the teams exchange 6 rating points
• Waterford's surprise win over Tipp gains them 4.2 rating points, but it's not enough to lift them off the bottom of the table; Tipp fall to 31st, their lowest since April 2007
• Sligo's win over Leitrim brings them to 17th, their highest since March 2016
• Carlow's poor year continues with a big loss to Wexford, costing them 1.2 rating points

laoisman11

PREDfullPDF.pdf

Six games up this weekend, some insights from the in-depth prediction model:

• Antrim's recent form has been quite poor and they haven't done so well versus Down recently
• Both Kildare and Wicklow's recent results don't make for pretty reading and Kildare often have difficulty against the Garden county
• Wexford's recent form is interesting, and they might give Louth a good rattle
• Fermanagh's form has been very erratic, despite some good, albeit, losing performances in Division 2

Full prediction model output attached (and I've noticed that the details in the Fixtures column of section 5 of each game is quite often gibberish or completely wrong - I will remove it next week and hopefully get some time to tidy it up at a later date) and a summary below

laoisman11

Only 1 major shock this weekend, with Laois losing out heavily at home to Offaly who were lower rated; Laois and Offaly exchange 6.5 rating points and swap ranking places 20-25

tayto lover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025066#Comment_122025066

Cork's position just doesn't look right.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122027679#Comment_122027679

Cork are better than Meath and not as good as Galway, their position isn't too far away.

laoisman11

PREDfullPDF.pdf

Prediction model output attached, and predictions below.

• 14, 13 and 24 were the winning margins for Galway in their last 3 meetings with Sligo, difficult to see much changing this weekend
• Waterford seem to alternate between good and poor performances versus Clare, and this year is due to be a poor one
• There is a huge rating difference between Kerry and Cork, and home advantage tells the model that the winning margin will be significant
• Both Derry and Donegal are coming into this meeting with good form, with the 6 previous games between the sides going more or less as predicted. But with new management on both sidelines, could this year be different?
• Just 3 wins for Roscommon over Mayo in their previous 20 match-ups, and the defeats have occassionally been harrowing (2009, 2017)
• Hard to understand the form of Cavan and Tyrone - apart from the big losses to Armagh and Fermanagh, Cavan had a very solid Div 2, whereas Tyrone, with the exception of the Dublin mauling, had a reasonably solid Div 1 campaign. Cavan haven't beaten Tyrone in the championship in more than 30 years….but this year could be tight

laoisman11

All the shocks were up north this last weekend…….

• Donegal's huge win over Derry was a turn up for the books, with Donegal gaining 8.2 rating points; Derry drop a massive 4 places to 6th
• Tyrone's extra-time win over Cavan helps propel them up to 5th in the rankings
• Mayo and Galway made minor gains, and no rating points were exchanged in the 2 Munster games

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122055720#Comment_122055720

The model is great work and I feel it does arrive at the right result come year end, however mid season it does result in a few quirks. The benefit Donegal got from the result against Derry is disproportionate. There is no way one result means they have now shown that they are the third team in the country and similarly Derry have shown enough on a more extended time period to be higher than sixth. Roscommon and Cork swapping places is also as bit of a strange one. I understand its due to the relative rankings differences but you essentially had 3 beat 10 and 4 beat 9 by similar margins, so nothing to suggest a relative change, yet Roscommon were actually penalised for having been ranked higher, and therefore having the better long term form, before the game. I don't think there is much between those two teams, but Cork have definitely not done enough to warrant overtaking Roscommon as yet.

Also, Monaghan down to 17th. A tough draw in the round robin could see them get a Dublin, Galway/ Mayo and Derry and there would be no shame in losing all 3, yet there would remain on the same points, yet team below them in the Tailteann could over take them by virtue of winning against poor sides.

laoisman11

I agree fully that mid-season, there can be some outliers in terms of how teams move around but at the end of the year, things generally average out (although occasionally there can be exceptions and I try to highlight those).

Where it is a bit more nuanced though, is that it is a rating point-based system but for simplicity of explanation, a ranking based system is what people see/expect to see.

So for the Roscommon/Cork example above, it was more than 3rd beating 10th, and 4th beating 9th, it was 104.4 at home, so 107.4 beating 90.1, and 98.5 beating 93.2 (90.2+3). And there are vastly different rewards for beating a team close to you (5.3 rating points difference between Mayo and Roscommon) vs when there is a big gap (17.3 for Kerry-Cork).

In general, 2 teams that are within 2 or 3 rating points of each other generally have very little between them.

laoisman11

PREDfullPDF.pdf

Prediction model output attached for this weekend's games:

• Little to extract from the form or previous history of Armagh nor Down, the superior rating position of Armagh should swing it for them
• Offaly have somehow managed to avoid Dublin since 2007 in the championship (I must look up how long it has been since Dublin have met other teams, notably in Leinster where they have been so succesful); Offaly's last victory was 1982
• Kildare's recent form has been cack, whereas Louth seem to be on a roll; notably, Louth have beaten Kildare in their last 2 (league) outings
• While Donegal's victory over Derry is the standount in their recent performances, they have excceded expectations by an average of 3 points this year

laoisman11

PREDfullPDF.pdf

I'm off on holidays for the next 10 days, so I will combine 2 week's updates after the weekend of May 5th. In the meantime, prediction model output attached for the Munster and Connacht finals.