2018 : Simulating the Finals Series After Round 23
/MoSHBODS is no fan of Sydney or Hawthorn, and this fact is evident in the latest simulation outputs (which use the methodology described here but with no perturbation of the current offensive and defensive ratings) a summary of which appears below.
For this first chart, rather than colour-coding by a team's final ladder position, we've instead colour-coded by opponent they lost to or, in the case of the "Win GF" bars, the opponent they defeated.
We see that Richmond remain Flag favourites, with an estimated probability of just under 40%. We also see that the majority of those Grand Final wins come against West Coast, with the next-highest hauls coming about equally from Collingwood and Hawthorn. Geelong, because of their relatively high rating on MoSHBODS (they're 4th), lose to (and defeat) Richmond in more Grand Finals than Sydney and GWS combined.
Collingwood are now second favourites, and win the majority of their Flags by defeating West Coast in the Grand Final. West Coast are third favourites, and win the majority of their Flags by defeating Collingwood in the Grand Final.
WEEK OF ELIMINATION IN FINALS
In this next chart we look at teams' chances for various Finals finishes, ignoring their home and away ladder positions (ie we focus solely on the heights of the bars in the previous chart). The numbers shown inside a cell are the percentage of simulation replicates (multiplied by 100) in which the specified team went out in the specified week of the Finals (or achieved the specified result).
(Note that 0 entries reflect estimated probabilities greater than 0% but under 0.05%).
Richmond, as noted, are assessed as just under 40% chances for the Flag, down about 9% points from last week, and about 58% chances of playing in the Grand Final, down by a similar amount. Collingwood are about 18% chances, West Coast 14% chances and Hawthorn just 11%, despite having the double-chance.
Of the teams without the double chance, Melbourne at 10% has the highest estimated Flag chances, with Geelong next on a little under 5%. GWS and Sydney both have very low estimated chances, according to MoSHBODS,
GRAND FINAL PAIRINGS
In this final chart we look at all of the Grand Final pairings that occurred in at least one of the simulation replicates. The numbers shown inside a cell are the percentage of simulation replicates (multiplied by 100) in which the team named in the row defeated the team named in the column in the Grand Final.
(Note that 0 entries reflect estimated probabilities greater than 0% but under 0.05%).
We see that the Grand Final pairing of Richmond v West Coast is most common, and appears in about 15% of replicates. Next is Richmond v Collingwood, which appeared in roughly 14% of replicates, and then Richmond v Hawthorn (13%), and West Coast v Collingwood (13%).
