2019 - Round 14 : The Final Half-Dozen
/This week is the last of the short rounds for the season, and forecasters again face a challenging, if truncated, set of conundrums (or, equally correctly, conundra).
Bookmaker handicaps start at 5.5 and go no higher than 22.5, which has resulted in an average for the round of just 12.7 points per game, the second-lowest for the season behind only last week’s record-setting 9.8.
Historically, Round 14s have not promised close games, with the average for two of the last three seasons coming in at over 5 goals per game. That’s contributed to the all-time average of 27 points per game for the round, which is the second-highest average for any of the home-and-away rounds.
Again, you’d expect the week’s low average expected margin to make for moderate, at best, forecasting performances, but that wasn’t at all the experience of last week when the average expected margin was even lower.
Anyway. let’s see what the MoS models think.
TIPS AND PREDICTIONS
It’s the Saints v Lions game that has attracted the most underdog support this week from the Head-to-Head Tipsters, with Home Sweet Home, C_Marg, and both the MoS twins opting for the Saints.
Across the six games we have Home Sweet Home going contrarian in three, Consult The Ladder and MoSSBODS_Marg doing likewise in two, and MoSHBODS_Marg and C_Marg supporting the underdog in one game.
Should MoSHPlay_Marg choose to follow MoSHBODS_Marg’s lead, the chasing pack of Bookie Knows Best and the RSMP twins will have the opportunity to close the gap at the top of the Leaderboard.
Amongst the Margin Predictors, only the Saints v Lions and the Power v Cats games have produced forecasts on either side of zero, though the mean expected margin is quite low at 9.6 points per game, which is over three points per game lower than the bookmaker’s.
The largest range of forecasts are for the Saints v Lions game, where it’s 23 points thanks to MoSSBODS_Marg. The next-largest range is for the Eagles v Dons matchup where it’s 21 points. In the remaining games the ranges are all between 10 and 14 points.
MoSSBODS_Marg and Bookie_3 have the most extreme forecasts in three games this week, RSMP_Simple and MoSHBODS_Marg in two, and Bookie_9 and ENS_Linear in one each. Remarkably, C_Marg is not the most extreme forecaster in any of the games.
Turning, finally, to the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, we find the largest range in percentage point terms in the Power v Cats game where the forecasts span 25% points (from 34% to 59%). Next-largest is the 20% point range for the Eagles v Dons game, though two other games have 16% point ranges (Dees v Dockers, and Saints v Lions).
MoSSBODS_Prob has the round's most extreme estimates in four contests, Bookie_RE in three, Bookie_LPSO and MoSHBODS_Prob in two each, and C_Prob in one.
WAGERS
A much busier week for Investors this week, with wagers already in all but one of the games. There are three head-to-head wagers, ranging in size from just under 1% to just under 2%, and five line wagers, ranging in size from less than half a percent to almost 5%.
(Please click on the image below to access a larger version.)
The largest of those line bets in on Port Adelaide, and this has left them carrying by far the greatest risk of any team this week at 5.4% of the original Combined Portfolio (as measured by the difference between best and worst outcomes), as you can see in the Ready Reckoner below.
The only other teams carrying more than 2% risk are St Kilda (2.7%) and Essendon (2.1%).
In total, just over 6% of the original Combined Portfolio is at risk, and the maximum upside is just over 6% as well.
To finish, here are MoSSBODS' and MoSHBODS' opinions about likely team scoring.
Commentary about these forecasts will come in the week's Overs/Unders blog and MoSHPlay’s various forecasts will be posted after the relevant team line-ups are made public.
