Currie Cup 2011 Final - And the winner will be...

Image by Charles Heiman - iMedi8 Photographic via Flickr

Following my article about the winners of the IRB World Cup 2011 by applying the principle outlined in the popular Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers. I thought I would apply the same process to the Currie Cup final taking place at the Ellis Park Stadium, in Johannesburg, South Africa between the Lions and the Sharks from Durban.

In the article about the world cup the principle suggested that the finals would have been played out between Australia and France. Although New Zealand did when the World Cup, the principle did get three out of the top four teams correct. It also predicted the winner of the Cricket World Cup held in India. You can read my post about that here.

Having mixed results, I have applied the same principle to the teams in the Currie Cup final. If it holds true the Lions should win. The Lions have 40% of their starting line-up players born between January and April against the 27% of the Sharks line-up.

Although there are many other factors influencing the result of the final, the Outlier's principle has certainly thrown a unique perspective to the way I look at the results of a match these days. From my side I hope the Lions win not only to prove the principle works but so I can once again be a proud Lions fan.