In this blog we’ll record the results of our first attempt this season to project the final home-and-away season ladder and the subsequent Finals series.

The methodology we’ll use is the same one that I’ve used for the men’s competition, which involves, in each replicate, simulating the next upcoming round using the teams’ current Offensive and Defensive Ratings and Venue Performance Values, updating those Ratings and Values as we would if the results were actual results, and then so the same for each subsequent home-and-away round and each week of the Finals.

Each replicate is, therefore, a simulated end to the current season, and we’ll do this for 10,000 replicates.

The results this week are as shown below.

These results suggest that:

IN THE HOME AND AWAY SEASON

• North Melbourne, Brisbane, Hawthorn, and Adelaide are all certainties to make the Finals, and Richmond and Fremantle virtual certainties. They all make Finals in every or almost every replicate.

• Geelong, Sydney, Western Bulldogs, GWS, Collingwood, and Gold Coast are all very unlikely to make the Finals. They make Finals in less than 1 replicate in 200 (in many cases in no replcates at all).

• West Coast and Carlton are about $33 to $40 propositions to play Finals, Melbourne about $4, Port Adelaide and St Kilda about $2, and Essendon about $1.50.

IN FINALS

• North Melbourne are heavy favourities to win the Grand Final, with Brisbane, Hawthorn, and Adelaide all roughly equal second favourites.

• Richmond is most likely to go out in a Semi Final, Fremantle in an Elimination or a Semi Final, and Essendon, Port Adelaide, and St Kilda in an Elimination Final.