This week we have nine home team favourites - and considerable favourites at that in most cases.

Collingwood, who still sit atop both MoS Rating Systems, now have a 2 Scoring Shot (or about 7.3 points if we assume a 53% conversion rate) lead over Geelong on MoSSBODS, and a 3.3 points lead over Geelong on MoSHBODS. GWS fill 3rd place under both Systems, fractionally behind Geelong on MoSSBODS, and just over 2 points behind on MoSHBODS.

As expected with the higher levels of disagreement this week, there was quite a spread of scores across the Head-to-Head Tipsters, ranging from 3 out of 9s for C_Marg, Home Sweet Home, and Consult the Ladder, to 7 out of 9s for the RSMP twins and Bookie Knows Best.

This week’s biggest differences between MoSHPlay and MoSHBODS are, for now, the following:

• Difference 14 points: Blues v Pies (MoSHPlay Pies by 48; MoSHBODS Pies by 34)

• Difference 12 points: Dockers v Tigers (MoSHPlay Dockers by 9; MoSHBODS Tigers by 3)

• Difference 11 points: Saints v Eagles (MoSHPlay Eagles by 2; MoSHBODS Saints by 9)

• Difference 9 points: Power v Crows (MoSHPlay Crows by 5; MoSHBODS Power by 4)

Note that this includes three games where MoSHPlay and MoSHBODS are tipping different winners.

The MoS twins are, once again, slightly more pessimistic than the bookmakers about the return to high-scoring contests, but at least the pessimism discount now seems to be locked in at around half a goal. This week, their average expected total is 162 to the bookmakers’ 164 to 165.

Monday morning was what I can only describe as an odd period on the markets. By the time I ventured in to see where things were at around 9 or 10am, four of the line markets had moved from where they started, one by as much as the equivalent of half a goal or so (it was at $1.75 / $2.05).

Collingwood have opened up small gaps atop both the MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Ratings Systems after comprehensively accounting for Port Adelaide in a 39 point and 14 scoring shot victory.

MoSHPlay backed up its 9 from 9 in Round 6 with a 7 from 9 in Round 7 to maintain a one tip lead as a Head-to-Head Tipster, but more importantly recorded an 18.7 points per game mean absolute error (MAE) as a Margin Predictor, the best of the round, and enough to see it to leap into third-place there.

Some big differences between MoSHPlay and MoSHBODS this week, most notably in the following games

Ah the comforting cadence of a week where the footy starts on Friday night and finishes on Sunday evening, and all the Totals markets are up by Wednesday …

I’m done speculating about how well the MoS forecasters might do on the basis of bookmaker expected margins, so let me, instead, just let you know that the TAB bookmaker has an average expected margin this week of 19.5 points per game, which is the lowest for a Round 7 since - at least - 2012.

A little quieter on the MoS Team Rating Systems this week, especially near the top where we now find both Systems agreeing on a Top 3 of Collingwood, GWS and Geelong.

After suggesting on Tuesday that no-one should expect to tip all nine results in the round, MoSHPlay went and did exactly that, out-tipping MoSHBODS using the player information that only it had.

It’s Wednesday, and all of the Totals markets are up at the TAB. Even after a decade at this caper, I feel certain I will never truly understand it.

After the announcement of the teams, MoSHPlay has lopped 8 points off MoSHBODS’ forecast victory margin for the Tigers, ending up with a Tigers by 7 forecast of its own.

Here’s what we have for … Wednesday’s and Thursday’s games (as if it wasn’t bad enough with a four day turnaround on all this stuff).

This week we’re back to low expected margins, with the nine-game average coming in at 15.4 points per game, which is roughly what we had for Round 3 and Round 4. We arrived at that figure of 15.4 via seven games with expected margins below 3 goals and two with expected margins of around 4 goals.

This week, it’s Collingwood’s turn, again, to fill top spot on the MoS Team Rating Systems, nudging GWS back into 2nd on both. Further down the table, Port Adelaide did enough on MoSSBODS to grab 3rd spot, but not quite enough to take 3rd from Geelong on MoSHBODS.

The Head-to-Head Tipsters averaged just over 50% between them this week, the best haul being MoSSBODS_Marg’s 6 from 9 and the worst Home Sweet Home’s 2 from 9.

We are, at last, close to convergence, as the bookmakers have finally conceded that lower scores are likely to be here for at least a while yet. This week, the MoS twins’ average expected total is only about half a goal lower than the bookmakers’.