Fantasy British Champs Tier 1

The second iteration of British Champs Tier 1 is almost at an end, with only one more bout to play (Royal Windsor versus London Rollergirls B, which won't change the table significantly).

There've been big changes in the rankings of the few teams which remained in British Champs for the second round; but most of the Tier 1 teams from the 2015 season declined to return for 2016, so we don't know precisely how they would have placed.

Luckily, a few fortuitous match-ups have given us some hint of what might have happened in recent weeks. Of the teams which did not return in 2016, Rainy City Roller Derby and Tiger Bay Brawlers both took on Glasgow [the only Tier 1 member to return] last weekend. Rainy City also played Kallio Rolling Rainbow that same weekend - just after Kallio had played another 2015 Tier 1 competitor, Auld Reekie Roller Girls.

So, this gives us points of comparison for three of the five teams who left after season 1. The others, Central City Roller Girls and Middleborough Milk Rollers, are a little harder to get comparisons for, as they've had a quite quiet year to date. However, both have played London B quite recently, so we can use that for comparison.

As more data is always useful, we also note that Dublin have played Auld Reekie, Newcastle and Tiger Bay Brawlers; and Berlin have played both Kallio and Glasgow, serving as an additional check on the inferences "via" an intervening team.

We entered all of these bouts, as well as the results from Tier 1 British Champs 2016 to date, into our Bayesian strength estimator. [This is the same one which we used earlier on in 2016 to predict Newcastle as likely winners, with a slight case for Leeds second, or maybe London B - which turns out to be pretty close to the end result.].

As a recap, here's what the table was like for British Champs 2015:

T1 UKRDA Premier

And here's what it is like so far in 2016:

T1 UKRDA Premier 2016

Now to the predictions - there are three columns here, one for "what British Champs 2015 would look like with teams at 2016 performance", one for "what we think British Champs 2016 should look like" and one for "what the overall position of all teams in 2015 and 2016 British Champs Tier 1 would be":

2015	2016	2015+16	Strength rel Rainy
Rainy City		Rainy City	1
Auld Reekie		Auld Reekie	0.50
Tiger Bay Brawlers		Tiger Bay Brawlers	0.44
	Newcastle	Newcastle	0.32
Central City		Central City	0.30
	London B	London B	0.25
MMR		MMR	0.20
	Leeds	Leeds	0.18
Glasgow	Glasgow	Glasgow	0.15
	Royal Windsor	Royal Windsor	0.14
NB: error on ratings is approx 0.05, so mid-table close rankings might vary by up to 1 position, especially on column 3.

While we're sure that the 5 "ex-Champs" leagues have benefitted from the additional time to spend in the USA, it might cheer them to know that on their current performance, a return to Champs might see them doing okay on that table, too!