2018 : Simulating the Finals Series After Round 19

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Time to update our views on how, according to MoSHBODS, this year's finals might play out.

Firstly, let's look at the relationship between teams' ladder finishes and ultimate finals performance, applying the methodology described here to the 50,000 final ladders produced by our original simulations for this week.

There's not a great deal of change in the profiles for Richmond, West Coast, Geelong and Hawthorn this week, although the colour schemes changed a little with Richmond's firming for the Minor Premiership. I think we probably need to call that shade "Richmond Red" this season. Sydney and Adelaide both saw relatively dramatic shrinkage of their chances to make and progress in the Finals.

Richmond remain the only team with an estimated better than 50% overall (unconditional) chance in the Grand Final, though Melbourne (48%), Collingwood (47%), Hawthorn (46%), GWS (45%), and Geelong (43%) are all teams with reasonable prospects of making the Grand Final, and near even-money chances should they do so.

Just 12 teams made the Finals in at least one of the simulation replicates this week, Adelaide least often of all, making it just over 6% of the time. When they do make the Finals, they progress to the Grand Final about 7% of the time, which is about as often as do Sydney and North Melbourne.

WEEK OF ELIMINATION IN FINALS

In this next chart we look at teams' chances for various Finals finishes, ignoring their home and away ladder positions (ie we focus solely on the heights of the bars in the previous chart). The numbers shown inside a cell are the percentage of simulation replicates (multiplied by 100) in which the specified team went out in the specified week of the Finals (or achieved the specified result).

(Note that 0 entries reflect estimated probabilities greater than 0% but under 0.05%).

Richmond are now assessed as about 37% chances for the Flag (up 1% point on last week) and about 57% chances of playing in the Grand Final (also up about 1% point). West Coast are now about 12.5% chances for the Flag (down 3.5% points), Collingwood 12% chances (down 2% points), and GWS and Melbourne about 10% chances.

If we define the season in terms of the five events listed above plus "Miss the Finals", the most-likely finishes for each team are estimated to be:

  • Win the Grand Final: Richmond
  • Lose in a Preliminary Final: West Coast and Collingwood
  • Lose in a Semi Final or Preliminary Final: GWS (remarkably, these two events occurred in exactly the same number of simulation replicates)
  • Lose in an Elimination Final:  Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Geelong, and Hawthorn
  • Miss the Finals: all other teams

GRAND FINAL PAIRINGS 

In this final chart we look at all of the Grand Final pairings that occurred in at least one of the simulation replicates. The numbers shown inside a cell are the percentage of simulation replicates (multiplied by 100) in which the team named in the row defeated the team named in the column in the Grand Final.

(Note that 0 entries reflect estimated probabilities greater than 0% but under 0.05%).

We see that the Grand Final pairing of Richmond v West Coast remains most common, though now appears in only about 12% of replicates, down 2% points from last week. Next is a Richmond v Collingwood Grand Final, which appeared in roughly 9% of replicates (down 3% points), and then Richmond V GWS (9%), and Richmond v Melbourne (8%).

The most-likely Grand Final not involving Richmond is a West Coast v Collingwood one, which occurred in about 4.5% of replicates.