2022 : Simulating the Finals Series After Round 14

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So far this season the simulations have ended at the conclusion of the home and away season. Today we'll extend the simulations to include the entirety of the Finals series.

In simulating games in the Finals, we'll use the same methodology that we've been using to simulate home and away games (which, I should note, adds increasing amounts of uncertainty to teams’ on-the-day Ratings the further away is a contest, and so is quite conservative about games scheduled to be played in September).

To apply this methodology we need to determine venues for Finals contests, for which purpose I've assumed that:

  • All Victorian teams play their home Finals at the MCG

  • GWS play home Finals at Sydney Showground

  • Sydney play home Finals at the SCG

  • The Brisbane Lions play home Finals at the Gabba

  • Gold Coast play home Finals at Carrara

  • Adelaide and Port Adelaide play home finals at the Adelaide Oval

  • Fremantle and West Coast play home finals at Perth Stadium

  • For the Grand Final, a quick logic check is performed and, provided the year is before 2058, it is assumed to be played at the MCG.

I’ve not sought to apply any additional logic to move MCG games should there be a surfeit of Victorian teams in any single simulated week of the Finals.

Applying the methodology to 10,000 of the 50,000 (yes, the code is slow) final ladders produced by our original Standard Methodology simulations yields the following results.

The height of each bar provides an estimate of the probability that the team will exit at a specified week of the Finals. Brisbane Lions, for example, are about a 10% chance of exiting in an Elimination Final. The internal colouring of each bar reflects the final home-and-away ladder position of the team when it went out in a particular week in a particular simulation replicate.

So, for example, in those replicates where Melbourne win the Flag, about one quarter of them come in simulated seasons where they were projected to finish 1st in the home and away season (ie the red portion of the rightmost bar represents about one quarter of the height of that bar).

In the top section of the chart we use a common y-axis for all teams, which makes it harder to discern some of the details for teams with smaller Finals chances. The bottom section of the chart addresses this by representing the same data but with different y-axes for each team.

Overall, we see that the teams fall fairly naturally into five groups:

  • Brisbane Lions and Melbourne: approximately 16% chances for the Flag and 31 to 33% chances to make the Grand Final

  • Fremantle and Geelong: approximately 13 to 14% chances for the Flag and 27% chances to make the Grand Final

  • Richmond and Sydney: approximately 8% chances for the Flag and 16 to 17% chances to make the Grand Final

  • Carlton and Collingwood: approximately 6% chances for the Flag and 12 to 13% chances to make the Grand Final

  • Western Bulldogs and St Kilda: approximately 4 to 5% chances for the Flag and 8 to 9% chances to make the Grand Final

  • Gold Coast: approximately 3% chances for the Flag and 6% chances to make the Grand Final

  • Port Adelaide: approximately 0.7% chances for the Flag and 1.4% chances to make the Grand Final

  • The Rest: all less than 0.5% chances to make the Finals and effectively zero chance of making the Grand Final

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.

We see here that, 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:

  • Lose in a Preliminary Final: Brisbane Lions, Melbourne, Fremantle, and Geelong

  • Lose in an Elimination Final: Richmond, Sydney, Carlton, Collingwood

  • 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.

We see that the most common Grand Final has Brisbane Lions defeating Melbourne. This occurred in just over 3% of replicates. The opposite result - Melbourne defeating Brisbane Lions - occurred in another 3% of replicates.

(Note that zeroes in the chart represent pairings that did occur at least once but in less than 0.05% of replicates.)