Most likely team to get an upset and beat a better team this weekend?

First topic message reminder :

England, Japan, New Zealand and Wales went through top of their groups.

New Zealand 1
Wales 2
England 3
Ireland 4
South Africa 5
Australia 6
Japan 7
France 8

New Zealand vs Ireland
England vs Australia
South Africa vs Japan
Wales vs France

I figure out of the eight teams the four underdogs are therefor:-

Australia
Ireland
France
Japan

Yeah they’ve been abysmal this year, have never won a QF and New Zealand look good. New Zealand find another gear when they need it and Ireland are too predictable.

I hear they're going to release Hooper from the straitjacket and face mask earlier than usual in training this week. Most of the Aussie players were against it but Cheika overruled.

God have mercy on the boys. Hope there is enough of a team left to take to the field against England.

Scottrf wrote:Yeah they’ve been abysmal this year, have never won a QF and New Zealand look good. New Zealand find another gear when they need it and Ireland are too predictable.

They've been inconsitant but not abysmal. I'd have them at least on a 30% chance of winning.

I think if I were doing percentages, I’d have it something like this:

England 75/25 Australia
New Zealand 65/35 Ireland
Wales 90/10 France
South Africa 85/15 Japan

Hope we don’t get four one-sided games at any rate, and I hope the main talk after the weekend won’t be about a refereeing decision (although it probably will be!).

Looking at the matches individually, I cannot see where the upset is going to come from. However, by heart is warmed by the fact that it is statistically likely we will get at least one surprise this weekend (the odds on ENG, NZ, WAL and SA to win are at 2/1).

Duty281 wrote:
Hope we don’t get four one-sided games at any rate, and I hope the main talk after the weekend won’t be about a refereeing decision (although it probably will be!).

That's the thing, a red card changes absolutely everything in the Wales and England games. For NZ and SA, I can still see the ABs and Boks getting over the line with 14, frankly. But if Wales or England get carded? Suddenly it's game on for the opposition. If Oz/France get carded, it could be curtains early doors.

Hmmm. Historically the QFs are usually tight games (eg Oz vs Sco last time) with the odd one sided match is someone a bit average gets out the group and hits a team on form (eg NZ vs Fra last time).

2015

South Africa 23-19 Wales
New Zealand 62-13 France
Ireland 20-43 Argentina
Australia 35-34 Scotland

2011

Ireland 10-22 Wales
England 12-19 France
South Africa 9-11 Australia
New Zealand 33-10 Argentina

2007

Australia 10–12 England
New Zealand 18–20 France
South Africa 37–20 Fiji
Argentina 19–13 Scotland

I think history will repeat itself with most games being really tight with one game being all one side. The all one sided match could be NZ handing out a lesson to Ireland, it could be Wales hitting a terrible French team (or France oucld show up and spank Wales) or it could be SA showing Japan that they arent quite at the top table yet.

I think we'll see two upsets, Ireland will beat the ABs and Japan will beat SF.

South of France, rodders?

They shouldn't take it out on me. I haven't been mean to them. Just think they might be hit by a very hard SA

Lets face it Miaow you are one of the most likely to get upset by something this weekend.

Most likely team to get an upset and beat a better team this weekend - Wales

Do people on this site only have 3 emotions? Upset? Eesh...I'd be disappointed if Wales lose, but nothing more. No other game matters. It's just rugby.

BamBam wrote:Most likely team to get an upset and beat a better team this weekend - Wales

Well I said I think you'll win

Gooseberry wrote:Lets face it Miaow you are one of the most likely to get upset by something this weekend.

saucer of milk for table 9 please!

miaow wrote:Do people on this site only have 3 emotions? Upset? Eesh...I'd be disappointed if Wales lose, but nothing more. No other game matters. It's just rugby.

Nothing to do with the results, I'm just sure something someone says will rile you. Apologies for getting in before the weekend even started properly.

Not really. People say stupid things on here all the time. Doesn't rile me up. Enjoy the banter most of the time. When it gets petty and personal - i.e. when the RWC is over - I'm out of here again. This site is neither upsetting nor riling.

maestegmafia wrote:

SecretFly wrote:Japan the 'underdog' by winning their pool in style, and meeting a SA.

Hmmm.  Okay, I'll fall for it.  They're the underdog - but Only going on overall records.  They are by no means underdog in terms of performances at this WC so far when compared to SA who are also in good form.

I don't see the Wales v France or England v Australia games as underdog games at all.  Just can't make myself think of them in that regard at all.  Quality too similar with perhaps coaching being the main dividing factor.

ABs v Ireland.  Okay, I'll accept the underdog description.  We've only beaten them twice and they are usually up there at the very top of the tree, year after year, decade after decade.  We'd need to beat them another four of five times in a brief period of years before we could offload the underdog status.

But... would it be an upset if Ireland won?  Hardly.  We're absolutely renowned for the epic big game surge after so-so periods of mediocrity.  I mean it isn't exactly unheard of that Ireland can 'surprisingly' hit teams out of the blue with an unstoppable train ride to oblivion.  So really, no surprise if it were to happen again.  Underdogs, yes.  Upset - hardly.

In this weeks WR rankings

South Africa are 3.67 points ahead of Japan
England are 4.61 points ahead of Australia
New Zealand are 5.05 points ahead of Ireland
Wales are 7.49 points ahead of France

So using the rankings as a basis Japan are the most likely team to beat their opponents and France the least likely.

World Rugby attributes 3 points to the home side - so Japan have an artificial rating of 85.08 for this game, and any swing in points will be calculated off the basis of that. So the gap between SA and Japan in the rankings with Japan at home is miniscule.

The other games are unimpacted as it is neutral territory.

Admirable, robbo, but didn't you hear? Japan is actually the third NZ island now.



(don't take this too seriously anyone...)

Just playing about with numbers:

BigTrevsbigmac wrote:Most popular bets for an ‘upset’ are for

Japan & Ireland about equal then France then Australia.

England 4/11
NZ 2/9
Wales 2/5
SA 2/11

England winning returns 1.36x your stake. NZ, Wales and SA return 1.22, 1.40 and 1.18. So these translate to expected win percentages (in a "fair" bookie) of:

South Africa - 85% (Japan 15%)
NZ - 82% (Ireland 18%)
England - 73% (Australia (27%)
Wales - 71% (France 29%)

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Scottrf wrote:Australia (25%), France (20%), Japan (15%), Ireland (10%) in my opinion.

I do think the favourites are fairly large ones in these matches.

This therefore isn't a million miles off. Japan at 15% is bang on. Australia at 25% isn't too far either. France and Ireland have potentially been underrated.

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Returning to the bookies win percentages, the chances of an upset are actually quite high. If we assume all 4 matches are independent (they basically are) the chances of all four favourites winning are 36%. There is therefore a 64% chance we get at least 1 upset. (For completeness, the chances of 4 upsets are 0.21%).

So you should be more surprised if we get through a weekend with no upsets, despite the fact that no non-favourite has a >30% chance of winning. England vs NZ and Wales vs South Africa is a long way from a foregone conclusion.

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Poll results wrote:
Australia - 39%
France - 32%
Ireland - 21%
Japan - 7%

If we played 100 sets of quarterfinals, Japan would win 15, Ireland would win 18, Australia would win 27 and France would win 29 - given our bookies percentages. As the given question was "who is most likely to cause an upset" we should ignore the times when there would be no upset, and focus on these. The percentages of who is most likely to cause an upset, given an upset takes place, is therefore:

France - 33%
Australia - 30%
Ireland - 20%
Japan - 17%

So in this situation we voters are very accurate with regards to France and Ireland, however we should believe in Japan a little bit more and Aussie a little bit less. Which might make me sleep a little easier as an England fan. Maybe.

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Regardless of the numbers and expected values it is inherently unpredictable, and so there's nothing quite like the knockout stages of a tournament. Every outcome is possible (although as above 4 upsets is unlikely!) and that should make for a cracking weekend of rugby.

miaow wrote:Admirable, robbo, but didn't you hear? Japan is actually the third NZ island now.



(don't take this too seriously anyone...)

Its an island in the Pacific QED Pacific Island....watch those clubs and schools start touting Japanese kids for 'scholarships' in NZ

It's Schrodinger's Japan. It's NH if they lose, Pacific Island if they win. Kiwi coached if they win, Japanese + journeymen if they lose.

Why dont you just hedge your bets with eastern hemisphere? You get half of england and SA that way, Japan, Aus, and if course NZ. Bonus is you dont have to account for how mediocre Argentina are and get to continue trolling Ireland fans ( unless they actually win which is pretty unlikely).
Wales are an issue of course but theyve got a kiwi coach and most people in Cardiff have more in common with Essex than real Welsh people anyway.

I think those percentages are being kind to the favourites. Probably worth betting on the underdogs if you are inclined to dabble a bit

Theres a questions, what would you get for a £10 bet on Ireland, France, Japan and Oz winning?

tigertattie wrote:Hmmm. Historically the QFs are usually tight games (eg Oz vs Sco last time) with the odd one sided match is someone a bit average gets out the group and hits a team on form (eg NZ vs Fra last time).

2015

South Africa 23-19 Wales
New Zealand 62-13 France
Ireland 20-43 Argentina
Australia 35-34 Scotland

2011

Ireland 10-22 Wales
England 12-19 France
South Africa 9-11 Australia
New Zealand 33-10 Argentina

2007

Australia 10–12 England
New Zealand 18–20 France
South Africa 37–20 Fiji
Argentina 19–13 Scotland

I think history will repeat itself with most games being really tight with one game being all one side. The all one sided match could be NZ handing out a lesson to Ireland, it could be Wales hitting a terrible French team (or France oucld show up and spank Wales) or it could be SA showing Japan that they arent quite at the top table yet.

Yeah the general quality overall has dropped. That means less scoring as closer sides than pool matches size each other up.

Gooseberry wrote:Why dont you just hedge your bets with eastern hemisphere? You get half of england and SA that way, Japan, Aus, and if course NZ. Bonus is you dont have to account for how mediocre Argentina are and get to continue trolling Ireland fans ( unless they actually win which is pretty unlikely).
Wales are an issue of course but theyve got a kiwi coach and most people in Cardiff have more in common with Essex than real Welsh people anyway.

Does East Anglia count as half of England? Presumably make great rugby players with the extra digits and webbing - particulary ideal in the humid conditions, too!

tigertattie wrote:Theres a questions, what would you get for a £10 bet on Ireland, France, Japan and Oz winning?

Just over four grand with BET365 if it comes off.

QFists look much stronger this year than last, you have to say. I know everyone is writing off Australia but I think they're on par overall and, in some ways, more lethal than 4 years ago. Probably lacking a bit at 10-12 and a bit of control and consistency - and of course Folau - but I think their forwards are underrated because they're not big names, not because of how they play. Add in a tidy backfield that could produce magic, I make them at least as good as the team that reached the final 4 years ago.

2019 Japan probably on par with Scotland of 4 years ago too. Maybe a touch less power. Wales are better in that they're not knackered and all injured, South Africa probably on a bit better - lost all the experience but have better players, in my opinion. New Zealand noticeably a bit weaker than 2019, France surely better this year than 4 years ago. Ireland - hard to say. Possibly par given their performances so far? The fact England make this draw means it's a tougher draw this year I think.

It's basically replacing England for Scotland, and Japan for Argentina. Maybe Argentina were a fair bit better than Japan, but this English team is a lot better than that Scottish team.

Also, it's been really good that the WC hasn't been dominated by injuries like it has in previous years. Not sure if it's chance, conditions, conditioning, style of play (think this is a big one) but it's nice that teams aren't shredded to the bare bones...yet, at least.

Big weekend coming up

Here's hoping Australia beat England, Ireland beat New Zealand, Japan beat South Africa, Wales beat France and Johnson's EU deal gets voted down

Have a good one folks

Duty281 wrote:

tigertattie wrote:Theres a questions, what would you get for a £10 bet on Ireland, France, Japan and Oz winning?

Just over four grand with BET365 if it comes off.

That would be so outrageous an occurrence that the bookies would automatically pay out your winnings even if you didn't place a bet. Just turn up and say: "You owe me four grand."

Well that ain’t gonna happen, that’s why they’re bookies, they aren’t stupid.

I bet Howley's got a few quid on Ireland winning

miaow wrote:QFists look much stronger this year than last, you have to say. I know everyone is writing off Australia but I think they're on par overall and, in some ways, more lethal than 4 years ago. Probably lacking a bit at 10-12 and a bit of control and consistency - and of course Folau - but I think their forwards are underrated because they're not big names, not because of how they play. Add in a tidy backfield that could produce magic, I make them at least as good as the team that reached the final 4 years ago.

2019 Japan probably on par with Scotland of 4 years ago too. Maybe a touch less power. Wales are better in that they're not knackered and all injured, South Africa probably on a bit better - lost all the experience but have better players, in my opinion. New Zealand noticeably a bit weaker than 2019, France surely better this year than 4 years ago. Ireland - hard to say. Possibly par given their performances so far? The fact England make this draw means it's a tougher draw this year I think.

It's basically replacing England for Scotland, and Japan for Argentina. Maybe Argentina were a fair bit better than Japan, but this English team is a lot better than that Scottish team.

Also, it's been really good that the WC hasn't been dominated by injuries like it has in previous years. Not sure if it's chance, conditions, conditioning, style of play (think this is a big one) but it's nice that teams aren't shredded to the bare bones...yet, at least.

No they don’t. They look weaker. What part of a tier two side from third seed making the quarters makes this round look stronger? Another qualifier lost to a tier two side.
The rest went with the draw. In 2015 England are the only side not to qualify, and that was due to another tier one side.

That makes this years quarters weaker, no matter how you try and spin it.

I explained why this year looks stronger. Only the All Blacks are clearly weaker from 4 years ago, so makes sense why you'd think that.

No, again, pie in the sky theories when the answers, again, are smack in front of you. This time, a tier two side qualified, last time, none did.

No matter how you spin, there is no way you can justify this year being ‘far stronger’ than 2015.

NZ are weaker? How so? They haven’t lost. They ‘look’ weaker? To you perhaps?

‘Ireland, hard to say’?

Really! Why is it hard to say. Last time they topped pool and never lost. They lose to a tier two and it’s ‘hard to say’

Geez, lucky you’re not anyone’s strategist.

More mumbo jumbo when the answers are on the wall in front of you?

No wonder rugby’s tough up there. You can’t even see the wood for the trees.

You're really clutching at straws. First Japan are awesome Kiwi-led legends, and now they're tier 2? Can't have it both ways.

Every team is equal to or stronger than they were 4 years ago if they made the QFs. England are clearly loads better than Scotland were, Argentina markedly better than Japan are this time around. It evens itsel out and with France being clearly a lot better than 4 years ago with their 6Ns results as well, it's fair call. Also, better match ups, no gimmes in the QF this time.

That's all you need to know. Don't overthink it, cuz.

'Pie in the sky theories' me hoop. Ireland are demonstrably stronger than 2015. In the 2015 they were missing 5 of their most important players. The Kiwis whinge 'it doesn't count' when they lose while missing one, Retallick.

Who they have parachuted back in with extraordinary swiftness at Barretts expense....their Irish hoodoo is about to get another chapter lol

Engine#4 wrote:'Pie in the sky theories' me hoop. Ireland are demonstrably stronger than 2015. In the 2015 they were missing 5 of their most important players. The Kiwis whinge 'it doesn't count' when they lose while missing one, Retallick.

Demonstrably stronger?

Ireland v England L 20-32
Ireland v Wales.      L 7-25
Ireland v England L 15-57
Ireland v Japan L 12-19

That is ‘demonstrably stronger’? This is with all their players huh?

Okay then,if you say so.

Retallick took a break, gave Barrett time to get up to speed. Who said it doesn’t count? Every test this year counted, the wins and the losses.

They need to for Ireland as well. They’ll learn from the Japan loss, it’s just whether they’re still good enough. They might be, but so far, their returns don’t reflect it. You seem to count losses as anomalies. We treat them as exceptions to winning. Why was that allowed to happen. What can we learn? Again, Chicago to Dublin. Perth to Eden park. Losses tell us everything we need to know.

Past results won't matter a jot in a few hours Taylor. Yes, Ireland have lost 4 tests recently. And what? NZ have lost to Ireland, Aus and SA in the last 12 months. Nearly lost to Argentina and robbed England with the help of Garces. None of which matters tomorrow. I can't wait.

Yep all true, we’ll know soon. I can’t really see this side allowing Hansen and Read and others finish their AB careers in a few hours and I also dont think Ireland have faced a test that the ABs wanted to win...at all costs, ever.

They will tonight. Same could be said about Ireland and Schmidt but then again, they aren’t defending champs. ABs should win easily

I’m going for Australia Ireland japan and France. Feck it lets do it.

Cmon Ireland. Time to make a first ever semi final.
No better team to do it against them New Zealand.

westisbest wrote:I’m going for Australia Ireland japan and France. Feck it lets do it.

Cmon Ireland. Time to make a first ever semi final.
No better team to do it against them New Zealand.

That’s the spirit... good luck.

maestegmafia wrote:

westisbest wrote:I’m going for Australia Ireland japan and France. Feck it lets do it.

Cmon Ireland. Time to make a first ever semi final.
No better team to do it against them New Zealand.

That’s the spirit... good luck.

Hopefully they will be four games that will match the hype.
All joking aside, think it will be the other 4 that win.

But.

Ireland and japan to win

Big wrote:Pains me to say it as an England fan, but I think Australia are most likely to cause an upset (in so far as it can be called an upset when teams are relatively evenly matched), shortly followed by Ireland in my opinion.

France are all over the place and I'm confident Wales can beat them, and for Japan I think South Africa will be a test too far.  There is no way South Africa will take them lightly after 2015.

Congratulations on being so wrong Big

He did better than Westisbest!

Well I the end it was France who got closest, denied themselves really with the red. Funny, I was told this was supposed to be easy, France no longer capable of upsetting...hmmm.

Apparently History doesn’t mean a thing where Ireland are concerned, going out before half time last time, but no, they’re much better this time.

Aha.

SA cleared out eventually as expected, Japan a bridge too far, a expected, and England too good for Oz.

So in the end France, by far the best upsetters in this tournament to date, again, went closest.

BamBam wrote:Most likely team to get an upset and beat a better team this weekend - Wales

Even Gatland agreed with me