Despite what the completely fictional critics, made up only for the purposes of this lead-in paragraph were saying, MatterOfStats will be returning for the 2016 AFL season.

So, which of the three-peating Hawks was the best of the trio at season's end?

Hawthorn were Rated the Number 1 team by MARS at the start of the season and at the end of every round, and by ChiPS at the start of the season and end of every round too except Round 2 when the Swans briefly snatched that honour. So, it seems fitting that the Hawks took out the 2015 AFL Grand Final in convincing style.

It's a source of continuing frustration to me that determining "Home Ground" status remains problematic from time-to-time, especially during the Finals. Resolving this for season 2016 is very high up on my to-do list.

Both Preliminary Finals went very much to script as far as ChiPS was concerned, the result being only very small changes in the Ratings of the four teams involved.

And so we wind up with the team Rated 1st by both ChiPS and MARS playing in the Grand Final against the team Rated 2nd by them both. After a week of seeing various statistics quoted about the success of teams of yore whose only similarity to the Dockers was that they also finished as Minor Premiers and/or were playing at home in previous years' Preliminary Finals, my faith in my understanding of the types of patterns than matter and those that don't in analytics is restored.

This week will be an interesting test of the predictive efficacy of statistics and Ratings compared to ladder position and history, as a far lesser-Rated Minor Premier playing at home meets an apparently much better-credentialled opponent that finished 3rd on the ladder at the end of the home-and-away season.

With a surprising result in one of the weekend's two games and, more relevantly, surprising margins in both, Rating changes, especially on MARS, were larger than we'd expect in the Finals.

By now it's one of a fairly small number of scripts that weekends seem to act out for Investors.

This week sees the two Home teams comfortable favourites on the TAB at the time of writing, especially the Hawks, whose $1.30 price tag makes them unavailable for wager for the Head-to-Head Fund. It's responded by placing a moderately sized wager on the other Home team, the Swans, who at $1.55 the Fund sees as exceptional value.

There's not much movement at all on ChiPS this week as we enter the Finals series and the multiplier used to update Team Ratings plummets to its lowest value of the season.

This week's wagering was the antithesis of last week's - though, regrettably, entirely in keeping with the majority of the season - with all four bets providing no return, leaving the Head-to-Head Fund down by 1.5c, the Line Fund down by 1.3c, and the Overall Portfolio down by 1.4c. Across the season then the Portfolio is now down by 34.1c.

Entering the Finals there's always a chance that the Funds will find the prices and handicaps on offer too unattractive to induce a wager, and this thought, coupled with the very subdued nature of the Funds' wagering over the later rounds of the Home and Away season, had me expecting a wagerless weekend.

At the end of the 2015 Home-and-Away Season, ChiPS Ranks seven of the eight Finalists amongst its Top 8 teams, the odd one out being the Dogs, which it Ranks 9th, preferring Port Adelaide for 8th spot.

One bet, one win: 100% record. How much nicer would the wagering season have seemed had I been able to say that just a little more often.

It's been anything but a usual week in the wagering markets for the AFL at the TAB, with speculation surrounding - and then actual - team changes leading to frequent and prolonged suspensions of some markets, significant delays in the posting of others, and a final set of prices fairly different from what we would have seen had teams been playing their regular squads.

A quiet week on ChiPS Team Ratings, with the only change of note the elevation of Fremantle into 5th at the expense of the Kangaroos.

On Saturday, GWS comfortably covered their 25.5 point spread, starting the weekend off in a winning way for Investors before Sunday and the Saints rolled around and the 26.5 points start they were receiving proved about 12 goals too little.

There were five home teams that the Head-to-Head Fund could have wagered on this week - those priced at $1.50 or more - but it opted to risk none of them, content to rest on its 2 from 3 performance over the course of the last three rounds.

That left the Line Fund responsible for the weekend's excitement and it chose to back up on the Giants, this week giving rather than receiving start, and to take a literal punt on the Saints for only the second time this season.