2026 - Round 28 (Finals Week 4) : Too Good?

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Just two games again this week, both with home team underdogs, by about two goals in the case of the Swans where 2nd from the home-and-away ladder meets 1st, and about two points in the case of Hawthorn where 4th from the home-and-away ladder meets 3rd.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

There are contrarian tips everywhere this week, including two from Home Sweet Home and MARS_Marg, and one each from the RSMP twins, MoSHBODS_Marg and ENS_Linear.

Amongst the Margin Predictors the margin forecast range is a massive 37 points in the Swans v Dockers game, and a more sedate 12 points in the Hawks v Lions game. MARS_Marg and Bookie_3 between them monopolise the Extreme Predictions.

Amongst the Probability Predictors the probability forecast ranges are 38% points and 13% points with MARS_Prob and Bookie_RE here providing all the Extreme Predictions.

Bookie_LPSO currently leads RSMP_Weighted by 15.4 points at the top of the Leaderboard and the aggregate absolute difference in their forecasts is about 10 points, which means that the gap at the end of the round could be under a goal.





WAGERS

So much has come together this week to leave us with the defining bet of the season: a huge bet on the Swans with start.

As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been doing a lot of anlysis this season with various LLMs trying to quantify the predictive contribution that comes from knowing who is playing in a game over-and-above the predictive contribution from previous team performance. Try as I might, I can only find the tiniest of contribution, even when the difference between a team’s current and recent squads is quite large.

That is, of course, exactly the case that we have with the Swans this week, and MoSHBODS is oblivious to it.

The Too Good To Be True rule - just as it did for the Swans win over the Lions in the Qualifying Final - has prohibited a huge head-to-head wager, but it has not quite been triggered for the line bet.

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

Here are the possible wagering outcomes for the Combined Portfolio:

  • Sydney win, draw, or lose by 10 points or less: +6.2c

  • Sydney lose by 11 points: +3.1c

  • Sydney lose by 12 points: +2.4c

  • Sydney lose by 13 points or more: -6.9c

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.