About the model

RugbyPredict estimates the probability that a team wins a given game. It is built on the same proven pipeline as our sumo and snooker sites: a temperature-scaled ELO rating blended with Glicko-2 (which tracks how certain each rating is), with a gradient-boosted correction layer planned once enough match data accumulates.

Home advantage

Each team carries an ELO+Glicko rating per competition. The home side gets a rating bonus (tuned per league); neutral-site games drop it. Rugby games are decisive, so the ensemble gives a clean home/away split.

vs World Rugby ranking

We ingest World Rugby ranking as both a model feature and a public benchmark. The performance page will show our calibration against World Rugby ranking-implied odds.

These are model probabilities for entertainment and analysis, not betting advice.