MoSHPlay has again forecast a close Thursday night game, this time opting for the Tigers by only 4 points over the Hawks.

All things considered, our over/under forecasts have been pretty good so far this season, so here’s another set of them for Round 3.

In the 18 games we’ve had so far, scoring has been about 85% of what it was in the corresponding fixtures last season, so it might be that, in a few weeks time, we revisit the assumption underpinning a lot of the model forecasts that scoring in 16-minute quarters will be 80% of that in 20-minute quarters. For now, though, the 80% assumption stands.

It’s also way too early to be making any calls about home ground advantage, so the implicit assumption that it too is 80% of its normal value also still applies.

Port Adelaide, with its 75-point win over Adelaide, completed its rapid rating climb over the weekend, moving from 3rd to 1st on both MoS Rating Systems.

When Home Sweet Home (HSH) outtips Bookie Knows Best (BKB) you know it’s been a challenging week to tip winners.

MoSHPlay has stayed very conservative for its first pick of the restarted season, opting for a 4 point Richmond victory, which is in line with all of the other Margin Predictors.

Betting Totals in the current season, where we’re not even sure in advance how many, if any, fans will be allowed to attend any given game, must surely come close to a pathology. But, here we are, and here we apparently must …

There’s not a lot of data to estimate how well or poorly different teams play off the back of an 80-day break, but that hasn’t stopped all of the regular MoS models from trying it.

With football due back now in under 10 days, it’s time to make some decisions about how the MoS twins and MARS are going to treat 2020 results. While it’s not yet clear how much 16-minute quarters will ultimately affect team and total scoring, for the time being I’m going to assume the effects are linear and therefore gross-up scoring by 25%.

There are three games this week where MoSHPlay’s forecast margins differs from MoSH2020’s by more than a goal:

• Richmond v Carlton: MoSHPlay Tigers by 10; MoSH2020 Tigers by 17

• Essendon v Fremantle: MoSHPlay Dons by 12; MoSH2020 Dons by 5

• Gold Coast v Port Adelaide: MoSHPlay Power by 30; MoSH2020 Power by 15

Last season we started with nine unders bets. In this otherwise very different season, we’re doing it again …

So, clearly, things are going to be a little different and less-structured this season, whatever of it we get.

Were I a betting man, I’d say there’s a better than even chance that this blog post will be totally moot in 24 hours time, but for now Round 1 is still going ahead as scheduled, so we’ll do what we always do here in preparation.

This is, I think, by far the furthest into a calendar year that I’ve posted about my plans for the upcoming men’s AFL season, though that’s not because I haven’t been making significant changes in preparation for it.

MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS penalised GWS heavily on the back of their Grand Final performance, slipping them back to 8th on both Systems.

Richmond, fittingly, finished 1st on both Systems, with a 2.4 Scoring Shot lead over the Lions on MoSSBODS, and an 8.3 point lead over the Cats on MoSHBODS.

Our three winners for 2019 are:

• Top Head-to-Head Tipster: Bookie Knows Best (137 from 207 - 66%)

• Top Margin Predictor: RSMP_Weighted (MAE of 26.69 points per game)

• Top Probability Predictor: MoSSBODS_Prob (0.1177 bits per game)

MoSHPlay is far less confident of a Tigers win than most other forecasters this week, eventually landing on a 10-point margin after the final teams were announced.

There’s virtually nothing separating the forecasts of the MoS twins and the two bookmakers this week.

The bookmakers have the Tigers as about 3-goal favourites over the Giants, and there’s not a great deal of disagreement coming from any of the forecasters about that assessment.

GWS rose to 3rd on MoSSBODS and to 5th on MoSHBODS this week after it made small rating gains on both Systems at the expense of Collingwood. The only other moves were Geelong and Collingwood each falling one spot on MoSSBODS, and Hawthorn falling one spot on MoSHBODS.

According to MoSSBODS, then, the Grand Final pits 1st versus 3rd while, according to MoSHBODS, it pits 1st versus 5th. MoSSBODS rates the Tigers as 1.7 Scoring Shots, or about a goal, stronger than GWS at a neutral venue, while MoSHBODS has the Tigers as 7.5 points stronger.