Most Head-to-Head Tipsters tipped the card this week, which once again left the top of the Leaderboard unchanged. ENS_Linear still leads Bookie Knows Best by a single tip but has improved its season-long record to 80.5 from 111 (73%).

If the bookmakers are right, not a single game should be expected to generate more than 168 points over this elongated in time and truncated in content weekend of football.

We have the first of two back-to-back, snack-sized rounds this weekend where only two-thirds of the teams get to take the field across a four-day span. 

Collingwood's emphatic victory over Melbourne on Monday impressed the MoS twins enough to have them both install the Pies as their second-highest rated teams, dumping the Dees into 4th while leaving Richmond and West Coast in 1st and 3rd places, respectively, on both Systems.

We knew before the round started that there'd be no significant moves on the Head-to-Head Tipster Leaderboard, though we might reasonably have hoped for a better than 4 from 7 return, but that's what we got from all the Tipsters except Home Sweet Home, who bagged only 3 from 7.

Seven games this week, and not much to make you happy if you're craving attacking, high-scoring football, with only the Lions v Dons game expected to breach the 180 mark for total score.

Just the seven games this week as we navigate through the who's-got-the-bye-again-this-weekend portion of the season, which won't end until we're through Round 14. Having successive weeks with 8, 9, 7, 6 and 6 games seems an odd way to accommodate the effectively nine games worth of byes required, but I'm sure there were constraints that necessitated it. 

Richmond remained top, but Melbourne grabbed second from West Coast on both MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS this week, as neither System found the Eagles' win over the Saints sufficiently convincing to justify their previous rating.

As we noted pre-round, interest this week was never going to be about the Head-to-Head Tipster race, which saw absolutely no change in the ordering with all but Home Sweet Home bagging 7 from 9 for the round.

If you've been troubled by the low scoring in much of this season, especially since Round 2, you'll not find much joy in this week's projected scoring.

We return to a full menu of nine games this weekend though a few of them look fairly unappetising, as conveyed by the all-game average expected margin this week, which has come in at 28.7 points per game. That's the highest single round average in the home and away season since Round 23 of 2016. 

Richmond and West Coast both did enough this weekend to hang onto their top rankings on MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS, while Melbourne's big win over Adelaide convinced MoSHBODS that it should, like MoSSBODS, lift the Dees into third.

ENS_Linear snagged another seven this week, matching Bookie Knows Best and retaining its one tip lead on the Head-to-Head Tipster Leaderboard. It's now on 63.5 from 89 (71%).

The bookmakers are reasonably confident we'll see an average total score above 170 points per game this week, with five of the eight games expected by them to produce a total above that figure. The MoS twins are far less confident and see only three or four games producing or exceeding 170 points, and have an average for the round a point or two below that.

This week's truncated footy fare is estimated to be more competitive than last week's but less competitive than the 2018 season-to-date.

Richmond's loss to West Coast cost them about 2 Scoring Shots of their lead on MoSSBODS, and 8 points of their lead on MoSHBODS this weekend, but left them still comfortably ranked number 1 on both Systems.

ENS_Linear pulled the correct rein in seven of the contest this week and now has the outright lead on the Head-to-Head Tipster Leaderboard by one tip over Bookie Knows Best.

For the third week in a row, both bookmakers are forecasting an average game total of below 170 points per game, so don't expect the lamentation of low-scoring games in the media to stop any time soon. What's more, six games are expected to finish with a total below that average, with the Sydney v Fremantle game expected to produce the lowest total of all at around 160 points, which equates to about 23 goals between the two teams across the four quarters assuming a 53% scoring shot conversion rate.

The upcoming weekend's football has more than a usual round's share of uninspiring matchups, with five of the contests expected to be won - according to the TAB bookmaker - by more than four goals, and two more contests by more than two-and-a-half goals.

Still a fair bit of movement on the MoSSBODS' and MoSHBODS' ladders this week, with Melbourne (up 3), West Coast (up 2), and Geelong (down 2) the biggest movers on MoSSBODS, and Geelong (up 3), GWS (down 2), and Adelaide (down 2) the biggest movers on MoSHBODS.