COMPUTER SAYS... ENGLAND, WITH HOME COMFORTS FOR WALES
SO who is going to win the Six Nations? How will Wales fare? Will anyone take the Grand Slam?
Mathematicians have used a complex scientific formula by feeding rugby data into a computer to try to predict the outcome from every match in this year’s tournament.
And they reckon Warren Gatland’s side will triumph in their three Cardiff clashes, starting at home to Scotland this weekend.
The actuaries predict it will be a really-tight Six Nations opener, but say Principality Stadium advantage from the home crowd will just sway the game Wales’ way by a narrow 23-19 margin.
They also have Wales beating Italy and France, but predict defeats away to England and Ireland.
That sequence of results would leave Gatland’s side third in the final table, with England ranked the likely winners.
The computer experts predict a winner-takes-the-lot Grand Slam showdown between Eddie Jones’ Red Rose and Joe Schmidt’s Ireland at Twickenham on the final super Saturday. England, they reckon, will just shade the game 19-17 to make it a hat-trick of Six Nations titles under Jones.
The results have been forecast by QBE Business Insurance, who have used a computer model to simulate each of the 15 matches 10,000 times to come up with the most likely final outcome.
They have factored in a raft of rugby issues, including form, home advantage, the number of tries and successful kicks at goal teams average, world rankings and even the number of caps of each captain.
Similar predictions were made for Wales’ autumn internationals. One scoreline was pretty much spot on, as QBE forecast a Wales 18 New Zealand 34 result. The actual score was 18-33.
They also predicted Wales would lose 20-24 to Australia (the scoreline was 21-29) and would beat Georgia 28-15 (the score was 13-6), so the margins were reasonably close.
However, although the number of points scored in the Wales versus South Africa finale was almost perfectly predicted, QBE had the result the wrong way around.
The predicted a 24-20 win to the Sprinboks, but it was 24-22 to Wales.
However, there is enough accuracy generally in those autumn predictions to give credibility to what is being forecast for the coming tournament.
Here are the predicted results: ROUND ONE Wales 23 Scotland 19; France 17 Ireland 24; Italy 12 England 36 ROUND TWO Ireland 41 Italy 12; England 29 Wales 18; Scotland 24 France 17 ROUND THREE France 33 Italy 16; Ireland 23 Wales 17; Scotland 18 England 26 ROUND FOUR Ireland 28 Scotland 16; France 18 England 24; Wales 40 Italy 16 ROUND FIVE Italy 13 Scotland 27; England 19 Ireland 17; Wales 23 France 13 FINAL TABLE 1: England; 2: Ireland; 3: Wales; 4: Scotland; 5: France; 6: Italy