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Devon Ringing League: How it Works

The system used in the DRL, introduced at the end of the 2005 season, not only takes into account both the finishing position and faults scored by the teams, but also accounts for the number of teams entering a competition. This gives a truer reflection of the teams relative strengths as it is 'harder' to win a 15 team competition than one with 5 entries. This feature allows the table to include six and eight bell competitions as it is the relative finishing positions and not the number of faults scored by a team the is most important.

The system works by simply awarding each team a number of ranking points which is dependent on the number of teams in a competition and the given team's finishing position. These ranking points are totalled and then divided by the number of competitions that team has entered to get that teams 'Ranking'. Two ranking points are awarded for each team beaten in a competition, and one point is awarded for a tie. The teams are ordered by ranking, highest to lowest, and any ties in ranking are sorted by 'fault difference'.

Fault difference is not unlike goal difference in football or points difference in rugby, but is calculated in a slightly different manner due to the nature of ringing competitions. As the aim is to achieve as low a score as possible, any faults given to a team can be considered as faults against that team, and therefore the faults scored by the other teams are faults for that team. Hence, for a given competition, the number of faults scored by a team subtracted from the total number of faults scored by all teams in that competition gives the faults for, and the faults against are calculated by multiplying a team's score by the number of other teams in the competition. The fault difference is then simply the faults for less the faults against. This method means that large positive fault differences are better than small ones which are, in turn, better than negative ones.

Disqualifications and other 'no results' are taken into account where the information is available. Teams that are disqualified are treated as if they finished last, i.e. get no ranking points and have the competitions entered increased by one. If there are multiple teams disqualified they are all deemed to have finished equal last and all get no ranking points. The team that finished with the highest number of faults are assumed to have 'beaten' all disqualified teams and are given the corresponding number of ranking points

Ranking calculation example

The following examples uses results from the 2005 season.

At the Spreyton competition, in which there were 10 entries, the team that finished first (South Tawton) are awarded 18 ranking points (2 × 9 beaten teams), the second place team (Exminster) receive 16 points and so on. There was a tie for 8th place (Sampford Courtenay A and Ide), and these teams are both awarded 3 ranking points (2 × 1 beaten team + 1 for the tie). The ranking points awarded for the competition are given below:

Team Points
South Tawton18
Exminster16
Chagford14
Down St Mary12
Lapford10
Mariansleigh8
Colebrooke6
Ide3
Sampford Courtenay A3
Sampford Courtenay B0

At the Widecombe in the Moor competition there were twelve entries and the points for this copmetition are given below:

Team Points
Plymouth, Eggbuckland22
Lamerton20
Exeter, St Petrock18
South Tawton16
South Brent14
Dunsford12
Buckland in the Moor10
Stoke Gabriel7
Chagford7
Burrington4
West Alvington2
Collaton St Mary0

The rankings from these two competitions are calculated by adding up the total points scored by each team and the dividing by the number of competitions entered. South Tawton's ranking, for example, is therefore (18 + 16) / 2 = 17 so the table for these two competitions is:

Team Rank.
Plymouth, Eggbuckland22
Lamerton20
Exeter, St Petrock18
South Tawton17
Exminster16
South Brent14
Down St Mary12
Dunsford12
Chagford10.5
Buckland-in-the-Moor10
Lapford10
Mariansleigh8
Stoke Gabriel7
Colebrooke6
Burrington4
Ide3
Sampford Courtenay A3
West Alvington2
Collaton St Mary0
Sampford Courtenay B0

In order to correctly position teams such as Down St Mary and Dunsford who have the same ranking their faults difference must be calculated. In the Spreyton competition there was a total of 630.5 faults scored, of which Down St Mary scored 53. Their faults for is 630.5 - 53 = 577.5 and their faults against is 53 × 9 = 477, so Down St Mary's fault difference is 577.5 - 477 = 100.5. Using the same method, Dunsford's fault difference is (676 - 52) - (52 × 11) = 52. An easier, and equivalent, way of working out the fault difference is to multiply the number of teams by the fault score of the individual team and then subtract this from the total fault score for the competition. For Dunsford, in this example, we can re-write the calculation like this: 676 - (52 × 12) = 52. Calculating the other fault differences in the same way the table becomes:

Team Rank Fault Diff
Plymouth, Eggbuckland22538
Lamerton20220
Exeter, St Petrock18118
South Tawton17330.5
Exminster16220.5
South Brent1476
Down St Mary12100.5
Dunsford1252
Chagford10.5207.5
Lapford1095.5
Buckland-in-the-Moor1034
Mariansleigh8-4.5
Stoke Gabriel822
Colebrooke6-49.5
Burrington44
Ide3-204.5
Sampford Courtenay A3-204.5
West Alvington2-2
Collaton St Mary0-176
Sampford Courtenay B0-369.5

As Ide and Sampford Courtenay obtained their ranking in the same compeition their fault differences are the same and they are arranged alphabetically. Over the course of a season this type of result would disappear, unless neither team enters another competition or they enter all the same competitions and always tie.

Over the course of a season a team's ranking fluctuates with their results, the table below shows this for an imaginary team. The columns are competition results, points, points running total and ranking:

ResultPtsTot ptsRanking
2nd out of 7101010
5th out of 62126
5th out of 1214268.67
7th out of 1210369
4th out of 12165210.4
1st out of 46589.67
8th out of 116649.14
1st out of 9168010
2nd out of 9149410.44