The New Zealand All Blacks have been given the label of Rugby World Cup chokers after failing to win the cup five out of the six times they have played. After all, surely the most dominant team in world rugby should be expected to have won the championship more than once?
This issue is inevitably getting play in the New Zealand media in the runup to the world cup here. The coaching methods, the psychology of the players, the refereeing and everything else is analysed ad nauseum to try to get to the bottom of the problem. This is probably all a waste of breath (although there needs to be something to fill those column inches). The truth is that the results just don't sufficiently back up the claim that the All Blacks really are chokers.
Firstly, do the All Blacks lose more often in world cup playoff matches? Their win/loss ratio in all matches against teams they have played in playoff matches is 0.8087, or 80.87%. In playoff games, their win/loss ratio is 0.7273 or 72.73%. This is indeed slightly more losses than the overall average, but given that the sample size of playoff matches is just 13, this is well within the expected range.
Secondly, just how unlikely is it for the All Blacks to have only won the cup once? Intuitively it seems staggeringly unlikely that a team with a win ratio of over 80% should only win once out of six times. However, the probability that a team with this winning ratio to only win one out of six by pure chance is 6.14%. This is a low probability, but not especially low. If something with such a probability happened in other circumstances, it most likely would be dismissed as chance rather than having some deeper cause.
If we presume the All Blacks are not chokers, what is the probability they will win this time? To do this, they need to win three games in a row: quater final, semi final and final. Given a win probability of 80.87% (the overall win ratio against teams played in playoff games), the probability of winning three in a row is 52.88%. Not much better than a coin flip!
To summarise: the All Blacks only lose slightly more often in playoff games, their losing world cup run has good chance of just being bad luck rather than choking, and they are only an even chance of winning the current cup, so don't count on them winning any more than you'd count on a coin flip!
This issue is inevitably getting play in the New Zealand media in the runup to the world cup here. The coaching methods, the psychology of the players, the refereeing and everything else is analysed ad nauseum to try to get to the bottom of the problem. This is probably all a waste of breath (although there needs to be something to fill those column inches). The truth is that the results just don't sufficiently back up the claim that the All Blacks really are chokers.
Firstly, do the All Blacks lose more often in world cup playoff matches? Their win/loss ratio in all matches against teams they have played in playoff matches is 0.8087, or 80.87%. In playoff games, their win/loss ratio is 0.7273 or 72.73%. This is indeed slightly more losses than the overall average, but given that the sample size of playoff matches is just 13, this is well within the expected range.
Secondly, just how unlikely is it for the All Blacks to have only won the cup once? Intuitively it seems staggeringly unlikely that a team with a win ratio of over 80% should only win once out of six times. However, the probability that a team with this winning ratio to only win one out of six by pure chance is 6.14%. This is a low probability, but not especially low. If something with such a probability happened in other circumstances, it most likely would be dismissed as chance rather than having some deeper cause.
If we presume the All Blacks are not chokers, what is the probability they will win this time? To do this, they need to win three games in a row: quater final, semi final and final. Given a win probability of 80.87% (the overall win ratio against teams played in playoff games), the probability of winning three in a row is 52.88%. Not much better than a coin flip!
To summarise: the All Blacks only lose slightly more often in playoff games, their losing world cup run has good chance of just being bad luck rather than choking, and they are only an even chance of winning the current cup, so don't count on them winning any more than you'd count on a coin flip!
