As alluded to in this week's blog title, most previous years would have seen MoS Funds sitting out the early parts of the season waiting for their respective Fund algorithms to calibrate themselves to the new reality. 

Some bigger-than-expected wins have again this week been converted into multi-spot ranking changes by MoS' three Rating Systems.

A small profit this week, all of it thanks to the Line Fund, whose 3 from 4 performance added another 5c to that Fund's value. The Overs/Unders Fund fared worst, dropping a little over 2c on a 2 from 5 performance, while the Head-to-Head Fund shed about 1c after just 1 successful wager from 3 attempts.

This feels like an important week for the MoS Funds, even if it is still very early in the season. With, in footballing terms, a 4 and 1 start for Overall Portfolio profitability, a move to 5 and 1 would provide more evidence that the various algorithms are spotting value, while a slide to 4 and 2 would raise a small query about the relative contributions of luck and talent to those initial successes.

A number of victory margins were again this week quite divergent from what the three Team Rating Systems expected, whether those victories were measured in points, which is ChiPS' and MARS' key input, or in Scoring Shots, which is MoSSBODS' sole focus.

At some point, the freakishly good start to the season's wagering had to end, and if this is as bad as it gets I think I'll be okay with that. (And, let's be honest, who says I get to choose?)

Again it's the Overs/Unders Fund that's most active this week, but I've no issue with that given its five from seven performance last weekend. For their parts, the Head-to-Head and Line Funds have chosen to battle on only three fronts and, in the Line Fund's case, with relatively small weaponry.

Though it's hard to argue with the efficacy - so far - of the forecasting systems built using the ChiPS and MoSSBODS Team Ratings, I'm still getting used to how readily the two Systems are willing to adjust their opinions about a team on the basis of a single week's results.

After an absurdly good start to Round 4 across Friday and Saturday, with a Head-to-Head bet on the Dons the only loser amongst four Head-to-Head, three Line and five Overs/Unders wagers, it seemed Investors' fortunes may have finally altered on Sunday when the first two Overs/Unders wagers ended up as losers. But then, in the last game of the round, the Roos rallied in the final term to land both the Head-to-Head and Line wagers on them, meaning that Sunday joined the lengthy list of profitable wagering days from this season.

Suffice to say MoSSBODS has very different ideas from the TAB Bookmaker this week about the likely aggregate scores in the majority of the contests.

This week Investors have another opportunity to mull over the wisdom of MoS' willful blindness to team composition.

All of MoS' Team Rating Systems are still significantly recalibrating based on each weekend's results, which this week has seen MARS re-rank 9 teams and ChiPS re-rank 10, though only four by more than a single place in the case of MARS and just three for ChiPS.

As expected, there was a tapering in the profitability of wagering this week, but if a profit of almost 3c a round is the mean to which we'll be regressing all this season, I can very much live with that.

After a good start to a season - and we have had a number of those before, not all of them portending the season to follow - it's nice when the main Fund algorithms avoid establishing an impromptu game of double-or-nothing with the bookmaker of choice and, instead, remain considered in their wagering.

The MoS Rating Systems are still in that phase of the season where they respond most to revealed form, which is why, for example, eight teams' MARS rankings and 10 teams' ChiPS rankings changed this week.

I think that's about as good a round as it's healthy and realistic to hope for.

With just three days between the completion of the first round and the start of the second, it felt as though I was collecting the Fund's winnings from the Bookmaker with one hand and then passing it back to him to cover this week's wager with the other.

This year, as advised in this earlier blog, MoS will be tracking only (!) three Rating Systems, and will no longer be calculating Massey, Colley or ODM Ratings. 

Two of the Systems that will be tracked are MARS and ChiPS, and their opinions of the Round 1 results appear in the table below. (That earlier blog provides information about how these two Team Rating Systems work, as well as information about MoSSBODS.)

It's a low bar, I acknowledge, but when you completely revamp your major predictive algorithms during the off-season, throwing away the predictive life-force granted you by access to bookmaker prices, I think it's reasonable to commence the new season merely hoping for an absence of profound regret.

Almost immediately after I'd posted Overs/Unders Update 1 this afternoon, the TAB framed Overs/Unders markets for the remaining eight games of the round, many of them with Totals that have subsequently appealed to the new Overs/Unders Fund.