Time for another big dance with one of the world's major sporting events coming around again in the form of the Rugby World Cup. As I did four years ago, I've loaded all the data into MAIT and it's given it's list of predictions for all forty first round games (click here to see the tips) and will be updated as the competition progresses, so make sure you keep an eye on the progress.
It's actually quite a difficult job and a very different process to the usual "league style" predictions. Every team has played different opposition in the lead-up to the tournament (in some cases, vastly different), and have played a different number of games with different schedules, so weighting the results involves a lot of analysis and is a great test for the MAIT algorithms.
The system has a lot to live up to, given the results from four years ago. Last Rugby World Cup, the MAIT tips were printed regularly in the Sydney Morning Herald, and placed head-to-head with their in-house rugby expert. On that occassion MAIT picked no less than 45 correct winners out of the 48 games and beat the human expert by a margin of three (click here for detailed results). Anything in that region again and I'll be delighted!
Also for what it's worth I've also included my thoughts on my "Big Five" for this years cup:
New Zealand: It doesn't take any real intelligence (or artificial intelligence for that matter) to identify the Kiwis as THE form team in world rugby. There can be no question that their team (or even their second team!) have more than enough talent to win the Cup. That said, they've been the form team leading into every World Cup ever and have only won once, two decades ago! The big question mark as always is over their mental toughness, and they're so desperate to win and live up to their public's expectations, it's making them vulnerable. Any game they start well, they'll almost surely go on to crush their opposition. If they find themselves trailing in the second half, look for that familiar constriction around the throat area. No value whatsoever for betting purposes with 1/5 to win the entire tournament about the best I've seen!
Australia: Mystifyingly they were the second-highest rated team in the world going in (although not the case with the bookies). At long last coach Connolly has stopped his bizarre experimentation with the team lineup and playing everyone out of position and is (amazing concept that it is) playing everyone back in their preferred positions. When he did so the team came to life like a giant rising from an 18 month long slumber, even knocking over the mighty All Blacks in the Tri-nations tournament. The proving ground will be the match against Wales in Cardiff, and if they put in a strong performance there, they could very well improve as the tournament goes on and have the talent to beat anyone.
France: Offering by far the best value for betting purposes in my humble opinion, with 8/1 still available at many bookies for the home side (for laying-off purposes this is looking very juicy). The side looks to be hitting form at the right time and if they put in some strong performances against Argentina and Ireland in the first round, those odds will shorten dramatically. Flogged at home (twice) by New Zealand in the Autumn tests a couple of years ago, the team has come a long way and surely deserves to be second-favourite ahead of South Africa. Caveman throwback Sébastien Chabal could be the star of the tournament, and in my head (my heart still insists it's Australia) they're the favourites.
South Africa: The Jappies are second favourite with the bookies, but I'm not entirely sure why. Although Perennial challengers for the Cup, they haven't really shown anything impressive since winning it in 1995, and this year's performances in the Tri-nations (admittedly with an understrength team at times) haven't really captured the imagination. I think France or New Zealand would account for them (in a bruising, eye-gouging affair) in the latter stages.
Ireland: Rounding out the top five, they looked very impressive at the end of the Six Nations tournament earlier this year, somehow snatching defeat from the jaws of victory through a conspiracy of falling asleep at crucial moments, some poor decision making and simple bad luck. Looming large and green on the horizon as a serious threat six months ago, they've since looked appalling in the warm-up games of the last six weeks, with their forward pack getting brutalized by all and sundry (I was actually at the game against Italy a few weeks ago and it took a highly dubious decision deep into injury time for them to squeak past the Azzurri). They have a couple of easy games to start with (Namibia and Georgia) to get them into the swing of things (the forwards especially need to smarten up), but form, a lack of depth and this tournament's "group of death" are all working against them.
That's How I'm Seeing It,
Al.