The Skibereen Eagle lives....

Snickers Man

The Daily Telegraph, as part of its preview of this year's Not the Heineken Cup, ranked all 20 teams in the competition as if it were a seeded competition like tennis. Whereas it's hard to take complete liberties with the performance of teams in an exercise like this, some of the rankings seemed a little off.

So, like the Skibereen Eagle keeping its beady eye on the activities of the Tsar in the 19th century, I propose to do the same for the Torygraph so we can see how accurately, or hilariously haywire, its rankings will turn out to be as the tournament progresses.

In the ten matches played this weekend, four teams beat teams ranked above them, with 18th-ranked Racing Metro's victory over second-ranked Northampton being only the most spectacular contradiction of the Telegraph's assessment.

Here then is the full ranking list in order. (I would provide a link but the Telegraph has a partial pay wall--you have to start paying after a certain number of free views--so I let it slip. Those who really want the original should be able to find it easily enough.

I don't think anyone would quibble too much with Toulon's top ranking or Treviso being rated bottom, but there are a few weird placings in between.

1 Toulon
2 Northampton
3 Saracens
4 Clermont Auvergne
5 Leinster
6 Bath
7 Ospreys
8 Ulster
9 Glasgow
10 Munster
11 Wasps
12 Harlequins
13 Montpelier
14 Leicester
15 Toulouse
16 Castres
17 Sale
18 Racing Metro
19 Scarlets
20 Treviso

errlloyd

Just to clarify, they didn't use any actual science to compile this list. It was the just the grubby fingers of the writer?

If so I'd agree that Northampton are too high and Racing are too low. Glasgow and Quins deserve better, Wasps and Bath are both performing well now, but basing it mostly on a couple of domestic games is too small a sample for accuracy - ultimately they are both teams that finished outside the playoffs in their domestic competition last year, and are ranked about a good few teams who were performing much better last season.

In all, I actually think the list could be worse.

matthew8

Wouldn't argue with the top 5 at all, but yes Bath (even coming into the weekend) and Ospreys stand out as overrated and Metro as underrated, but elsewhere the picture is quite blurry so it's tough to complain about many others.

Snickers Man

matthew8 wrote: »

Wouldn't argue with the top 5 at all, but yes Bath (even coming into the weekend) and Ospreys stand out as overrated and Metro as underrated, but elsewhere the picture is quite blurry so it's tough to complain about many others.

I agree that it's difficult to be either completely objective or blatantly biased about such a list, at least while trying to retain some credibility. But I think it might be interesting to keep referring back to it as the season progresses to see how one journalist's rankings retain their validity.

So much can go wrong, of course, in rugby to alter a team's prospects. Injury to key players being the most obvious variable.

Still, it's quite clear that he expects the semi finals to be dominated by the new Anglo French elite who are finally throwing off the shackles, they would say, of "Celtic dominance" of the administration of the game.

We'll see.

IanOBo

hahahaha thats just wrong. Home/Away has to be considered.


Still, I think there is more than a hint of English bias there.....

Glasgow 37 - 10 Bath


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6. Bath
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9. Glasgow
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wat

WinnyThePoo

Was anyone surprised Glasgow thrashed Bath. Glasgow know how to throw the ball around. Everytime I've seen the them play under Townesend in the last couple of years they have played very positive rugby and are getting results.

Snickers Man

WinnyThePoo wrote: »

Was anyone surprised Glasgow thrashed Bath.

Yeah. Gavin Mairs probably.

(The Telegraph journo who posted those rankings.)

Riskymove

Avianna Attractive Steak wrote: »

Glasgow 37 - 10 Bath


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6. Bath
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9. Glasgow
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wat

is the list posted the one from before the games were played?

and if so, what did they base it on?

desertcircus

This should be pretty easily rateable. Their ranking indicates a fairly clear finishing order in each group - at the end of the group stage, how many positions out of twenty did they get right? And how does it compare to other people's predictions of same? For what it's worth, I suspect they'll do fairly poorly.

Greyian

desertcircus wrote: »

This should be pretty easily rateable. Their ranking indicates a fairly clear finishing order in each group - at the end of the group stage, how many positions out of twenty did they get right? And how does it compare to other people's predictions of same? For what it's worth, I suspect they'll do fairly poorly.

If we assume that the highest rated team in each pool will win, 2nd highest will be runner-up etc, this is how the pools break down:

Pool 1
Saracens
Clermont Auvergne
Munster
Sale

Pool 2
Leinster
Wasps
Harlequins
Castres

Pool 3
Toulon
Ulster
Leicester
Scarlets

Pool 4
Bath
Glasgow
Montpellier
Toulouse

Pool 5
Northampton
Ospreys
Racing Metro
Treviso