I´ve built a simulator that based on my ratings forecasts the finishing position for each team, it´s quite nifty and based on last season´s form the final table would look as below, not surprisingly it´s not unlike last seasons.

Wigan 1
Warrington 2
St Helens 3
Leeds 4
Catalan 5
Hull 6
Huddersfield 7
Hull KR 8
Bradford 9
Wakefield 10
Salford 11
London Broncos 12
Castleford 13
Widnes 14

I only ran the simulator 250 times, it takes seconds now it´s set up, as there was no point, it´s clear that last season´s form whilst relevant doesn´t tell the whole story, so what I´m hoping is that someone can give me some decent lines on who will improve and who will deteriorate.

For instance if you feel Wigan will lose their way with the loss of the half backs if you could express it as a percentage drop in performance it would help. Once i´ve got some figures I´ll run it all and give probabilities for winner, top 2, top 4, top 8 and bottom.

My take on how the teams will go this season relative to last season is below.

Wigan -15%
Warrington -5%
St Helens +5%
Leeds =
Catalan =
Hull +10%
Huddersfield =
Hull KR +5%
Bradford -10%
Wakefield +15%
Salford -15%
London Broncos +15%
Castleford +5%
Widnes +10%

These aren´t based on finishing form, but on an overall feel of the season, most teams ebb and flow. It´s not very scientific but any sensible suggestions are welcome.

Oh and one other thing, i´m working off last year´s magic weekend fixtures, are this year´s pairings the same?

It's got to be better than Phil Clarkes effort from last season

Just a small point
Hull KR, with a 5% improvement are "forecast" to improve 2 league placings, yet the 2 teams that they are to finish above, compared to last season, are Wakefield (15%) and Bradford (10%).
If their improvement is less, in precentage terms than these 2 teams, how will they do this ?

I have an image of a converted washing machine rumbling away in your spare room, with a cloud of smoke coming out of the back.
Remember, water and electricity dont mix too well

DAM i thought it was phil clarkes effort for this season

Just a quick un, Bradford are a -10. And my ratings suggest HKR are a better team than there final league placing suggested last year. Out of interest if Hull KR were lining up against Wakefield on a neutral ground on the first day of the season who would you fancy?

Secondly the placings above are prior to the tweakings outlined below it, the tweakings have not yet been applied, i´m waiting to see what others with more knowledge of their own teams might suggest.

So how do you reckon HKR will go relative to last year, and I´m not talking number of wins or points specifically, more general competitiveness.

You need to get out more.

You are quite right but i´ve fallen in love with Excel spreadsheets. With a new bit of excel knowhow it only took a few minutes to create, and it does have real life applications, gambling for example.

If you are looking to gamble (any more seriously than just for fun) I really wouldn't do so based on your season long predictions. There are so many uncertainties involved over the course of a season (the main one being injuries) that if you want to successfully gamble you need to make a spreadsheet that predicts the outcome of individual matches (that way you can make a lot of small bets and the uncertainties should average out).

I'm currently making a program (I'm using Matlab) that analyses previous results of matches and will hopefully predict the winner of future matches with a decent accuracy. I'm designing my program for women's Australian basketball as this is pretty much the most obscure team sport, in which draws are unlikely (makes my program much simpler), which you can place bets on - based on the idea that the odds for these matches are far more erratic (pretty much chosen at random) so there is more chance of consistently beating the bookies odds.

Just out of interest, given the relative ratings of each team how are you predicting the winner of match? Are you using form from last season to make predictions or are are you updating and using form from the current season? i.e. if Wigan were to lose the first 10 games of the season would your spreadsheet be able to take this into account, lower the odds of them winning future games and thus make an updated simulation of the remaining season?

Thanks for the reply.

I regard my ratings highly, and have made money out of them three seasons running, this new programme is a bit of fun, for now and utilises the ratings that I use on a week by week basis, whilst it may or may not be able to pinpoint a bit of value in the season long markets, it´s not something I would be staking much money on if any at all.

With regards the season, yes the programme forecasts the result of every game and tots them up, to make a league table, as I´m sure you are aware the hoped for accuracy comes from the multiple runs of a season, after every game the ratings are recalculated and a new forecast for the remainder of the season can be projected.