RLIF World Rankings

[Arucard]

http://www.rlwc2013.com/rugby-league-world-news/article/781/latest-rlif-world-rankings-ahead

Latest rankings released.

 

[roughyedspud]

what the hell is that rating index?



it was complicated enough without adding a seemingly pointless percentage marking?

 

[mattystans000]

Wow, didn't know there wasn't a thread on here already about this. It's been all over twitter for days now, just assumed it would've been common knowledge here. Good work Arucard for posting it here.
And the Rating Index is pretty simple, simply says as a percentage how far behind each nation is compared to Australia or Nation Ranked #1

 

[miguel de cervantes]

that's some serious kurtosis that needs flatening if international league wants to have any credibility. they're probably better off not publishing that on the rlwc website.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

The whole thing is f**king stupid. Why even have world rankings? Not only is it impossible to create a system that works but it doesn't prove anything that isn't already known.

 

[mattystans000]

Another case of damned when league does, damned when league doesn't. Seriously, years gone by people crying out for proper world rankings, as all other legit world gov. bodies have, now they have them people want them taken down?

Nothing's perfect, so if you're never gonna try because of that, just give up on anything and everything. And we all know Australia's dominance, but this gives recognition of the smaller and newer nations, particularly across europe, that they are a part of our game, no matter how dominant the kangaroos are, they have a place alongside them in the world rankings.

 

[Bluebags1908]

The whole thing is f**king stupid. Why even have world rankings? Not only is it impossible to create a system that works but it doesn't prove anything that isn't already known.

I think the rankings serve a purpose for the minnow nations, as they can use it as a vehicle to lobby their Government for more recognition and funding.

For example, Malta is currently ranked 20th but if in 5 year time they are ranked 15th or 16th they can use this as evidence that they are a well-run national body which is doing Malta proud of the world stage by improving their world ranking, thus receiving more Government funding.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

Make them all equal number 1 then. It wouldn't be much less farcical.

 

[mattystans000]

Make them all equal number 1 then. It wouldn't be much less farcical.

Did you have anything constructive to contribute when you entered this thread?.. -.-

 

[Dakink]

How unusual, ECT being negative about the game internationally ;-)

 

[East Coast Tiger]

Oops, sorry. The international game is massive, well-run and completely unfarcical.

Better?

These rankings are a negative for the game. If you want to prove that RL is pitifully small and only taken seriously in a couple of countries this nonsense is the perfect way to do it. Yet people are advocating it. It's not even accurate in any way, but that's beside the point.

 

[Evil Homer]

The only purpose of world rankings in other sports is to provide seedings for international tournaments. Since RL seems to decide these seedings beforehand with no apparent reference to anything in particular, I'm inclined to agree with ECT here. Especially when several of the higher ranked nations on the list haven't played for years.

As mentioned, the only good to come out of this would be if a lesser nation was somehow able to secure funding by moving up the rankings. But given the relative profile of the sport in many of these nations and the farcical nature of the rankings, I would think that would be unlikely.

 

[mattystans000]

The only purpose of world rankings in other sports is to provide seedings for international tournaments. Since RL seems to decide these seedings beforehand with no apparent reference to anything in particular, I'm inclined to agree with ECT here. Especially when several of the higher ranked nations on the list haven't played for years.

As mentioned, the only good to come out of this would be if a lesser nation was somehow able to secure funding by moving up the rankings. But given the relative profile of the sport in many of these nations and the farcical nature of the rankings, I would think that would be unlikely.

Just to point out, there are 28 nations on the rankings list, and all of the top half (thus "higher ranked nations" HAVE played regularly over the last number of years. So dont know just what you're making reference to there apparently? And in fact we all know and could easily look up the fact that all but South Africa & Latvia have been playing internationals quite regularly over the last few years. Even then Sth Africa played in the 2011 qualifying comp for RLWC2013! So that comment does smack of complaining for the sake of complaining cos League = Always run by idiots no matter what.

Yes the second point you make is of great value to minnow nations, and these ranking have gotten coverage in some nations like Malta with a few sports papers publishing the article.

If you want to prove that RL is played outside of the big 3, well say to whoever's asking , hey look at these official rankings published on the RLIF's official site with all these match reports from actual internaitonals being played by and in those countries! Wow, a bit of a positive light looking at this kind of stuff would take league a lot further than the constant self hating, in fighting, always negative, go nowhere attitude many league fans seem to have without any apparent reason.

And if you're going to be critical in the sense that rankings are inherently farcical, then please do put forward an alternative system that does not simply read "these are shit! I know everything about how good league nations are without this crap, scrap it and screw anything else".

 

[East Coast Tiger]

Still overlooking the fact that the difference between most countries' world cup sides and the third string sides they trot out for three out of four years makes any system completely pointless and inaccurate. Look at the Italian team of three years ago and the Italian team they will have at the WC. It looks like the game in Italy has gone from having 20 amateur players to 20 NRL players. That doesn't mean the game there is strong, nor does it mean that in 2014 Italy will have a team that is 10% of what it was in the 2013 WC. The same pretty much goes for Ireland, Scotland, Fiji, Samoa, the USA and all the other countries that talk pro players into having a run at the WC but never show up at any other time. You can pull yourself off over the ranking as much as you like but they are a farce and, what makes it worse, they don't even show the game in a good light. It's not much better than the VFL zealots banging on about their "international" game when the reality is there isn't one.

 

[crimpo]

If you want to rage at problems in International RL then there are no shortage of bigger ones than this.

 

[thorson1987]

Norway 19th

Moving on up.

 

[mattystans000]

Still overlooking the fact that the difference between most countries' world cup sides and the third string sides they trot out for three out of four years makes any system completely pointless and inaccurate. Look at the Italian team of three years ago and the Italian team they will have at the WC. It looks like the game in Italy has gone from having 20 amateur players to 20 NRL players. That doesn't mean the game there is strong, nor does it mean that in 2014 Italy will have a team that is 10% of what it was in the 2013 WC. The same pretty much goes for Ireland, Scotland, Fiji, Samoa, the USA and all the other countries that talk pro players into having a run at the WC but never show up at any other time. You can pull yourself off over the ranking as much as you like but they are a farce and, what makes it worse, they don't even show the game in a good light. It's not much better than the VFL zealots banging on about their "international" game when the reality is there isn't one.

Thanks for telling me I can pull myself off ECT, wonderfully mature contribution to the thread -.- but i think i have better things to do with my time.

Rankings in any system won't ever account for the make up of any team, but if you think the once every four years nature of pro stars turning out for these nations actually makes a recognisable dent in their rankings, which as I last heard are calculated over results of the last two years, then I don't think you actually understand what you're annoyed about. Taking a look at those top 11 nations, they are all definitely ranked pretty well were they would be with or without a pro star contingent. Cooks & Lebanon would maybe go up after them, but that's pretty much it for any domestic v pro star anomolies in this system. No one ever said these were "rankings of nations in the world cup tournament", they are "rankings" of many various tournaments and matches over a two year period, with various players making movements into and out of the national squads of each nation.

Your problems are obviously with other issues, which matter to most all of us on these forums. eg. Commitments of pro stars, eligibility rules, one nations for life or not, etc, etc, as Crimpo iis making reference to.

But the rankings as they are accurately reflect the strength of all nations as they have been over the last 2 year period and rightly or wrongly reward those nations who are able to call upon a contingent of pro players at any point in that period.

What i'm saying is that these rankings do the game a good service outside the borders of the big 3 nations. If you fail to see that, and to see that all those nations below them have something to aspire to, measure their successes and failures against, try to better themselves towards, then you miss the whole point of these rankings. The RLIF, if they were so proactive, and any of the NGO's, could also take these rankings to various government bodies and present them with something real, tangible, not "ohh, yeah, well we know the big 3 are good and australia wins "everything" (dont they? rlwc2008...) so we dont really give a toss after that".

 

[East Coast Tiger]

They don't accurately refelect anything. You're living in fairy land. How can they accurately reflect anything when one year a country fields a team of amateurs and gets smashed by another team of amateurs and then the next year they ring in a team of pros and belt the very same teams. It's a joke. And as for this fantasy that countries are going to take such spurious figures to a government as some kind of proof that they should get funding, that's is one of the most absurd things I've ever read on here. Why would a government give a cent to a sport just because it's local side is arbitrarily ranked in a certain position with no context provided? Governments would look at things like...... oh I don't know...... the number of actual players. I doubt they will give a rats arse if some country has risen from 23rd to 18th in these pointless rankings if the country only has 20 RL players in it. But you never know. Some of these governments might be as gullable as some people on here who think this ridiculous list means anything at all.

 

[miguel de cervantes]

I agree with you both in a way. The list is mostly useless and primarily serves to highlight the extreme uneveness that exists at the pointy end of the scale, at least to fans in the big four nations, and this is not something we really want to be doing in the lead up to the RLWC. It's ready made ammunition for union toffs and God knows they will being coming out of the woodwork in force in England next year.

This said, the list is of some interest to most countries outside the pointy end, for comparing Canada with Jamaica, South Africa etc. countries that don't and can't really play each other. They don't yet play enough games to make it 100% accurate but we are moving in the right direction in that respect, that is undeniable, so the list will only grow in usefulness. If the majority of the games they play don't involve ring-ins, which is the case for most of the nations in the list, then it can be argued that the list does give a decent idea of their standings. I don't really consider Italy with Minicello and co. to be the real Italy so this list is probably more interesting than their World Cup performance at the end of the day.

 

[mattystans000]

I agree with you both in a way. The list is mostly useless and primarily serves to highlight the extreme uneveness that exists at the pointy end of the scale, at least to fans in the big four nations, and this is not something we really want to be doing in the lead up to the RLWC. It's ready made ammunition for union toffs and God knows they will being coming out of the woodwork in force in England next year.

This said, the list is of some interest to most countries outside the pointy end, for comparing Canada with Jamaica, South Africa etc. countries that don't and can't really play each other. They don't yet play enough games to make it 100% accurate but we are moving in the right direction in that respect, that is undeniable, so the list will only grow in usefulness. If the majority of the games they play don't involve ring-ins, which is the case for most of the nations in the list, then it can be argued that the list does give a decent idea of their standings. I don't really consider Italy with Minicello and co. to be the real Italy so this list is probably more interesting than their World Cup performance at the end of the day.

Well said Miguel!