2026 - Round 23 : Motivated?

This week we have just two games expected to be decided by about two goals or less, four by about three-and-a-half to four goals, two by about five goals, and the last two by about ten goals.

Three games have home favourites with an average expected victory margin of 22.2 points per game, and six have an away team favourite with an expected victory margin of just 16.7 points per game. Across all nine games, the average expected margin is 18.5 points per game.

One of the perils of tipping (and wagering) at this point in the season without knowledge of the selected teams, is that this absence is exacerbated by a similar lack of knowledge about the underlying motivation levels of the players that are selected.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

Home Sweet Home has five contrarian tips this week and is joined by a lone contrarian tip from Consult the Ladder. Bookie Knows Best’s and ENS_Linear’s five tip lead is therefore safe for another week.

Amongst the Margin Predictors there is a double-digit forecast range in all but two games this week, most notably 30 points in the Dons v Swans game, and 20 points in the Tigers v Saints game, and Power v Dees clashes.

MoSHBODS_Marg is Extreme Predictor in six games this week, Bookie_3 in five, and Bookie_9 in four .

Amongst the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, there are only three games with a double-digit forecast range, most notably 17% points in the Power v Dees game.

MoSHBODS_Prob is the Extreme Predictors in six games this week, MARS_Prob in four, and Bookie_RE and Bookie_LPSO in three each.

WAGERS

As I alluded to earlier, there can be perils in acting without complete information. Whether that applies to this week’s wagering will be determined over the course of next weekend, but make sure you’re sitting down for this one.

This week there are four head-to-head wagers totalling 10% of the original Head-to-Head Fund, and six line wagers totalling just over 21% of the original Line Fund. The only vetoes were on Collingwood and Port Adelaide head-to-head wagers.

The only shenanigans was on the Port Adelaide line bets where, rather than securing 6.2% of the Line Fund +25.5 @ $1.90 we wound up with 3.1% at that price and another 2.6% +25.5 @ $1.89.

(Please click on the image below to access a larger version.)

The Ready Reckoner for these wagers appears below.

So, best case is an increase in the price of the Combined Portfolio by just over 15c, worst case a decrease by just over 16c. It’s therefore possible that we could wipe out the entire season’s profit this week or we could more than double it.

To finish, here are MoSHBODS’ and MARS’ opinions about likely team scoring, margins and probabilities.

Commentary about the MoSHBODS’ Totals 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.