We've just 2 rounds to go now until teams start creating the history that fans will remember - fondly or otherwise - and neither the top 4 nor the top 8 positions are all locked in. Surely the practical science of statistics can help us to determine the chances for each team that is still in the running.
To simulate the possible outcomes for the season's remaining games we need to:
(For anyone who's curious, in the second step I use the fact that I've determined empirically - as chronicled over on MAFL Stats - that there's a direct link between a team's probability of victory and the handicap it can expect to receive on line betting, and that handicap-adjusted margins seem to roughly follow a Normal distribution with a mean on 0 and a standard deviation of 37.7 points.)
I've completed the steps above using 3 different sets of probabilities, as set down in the table below:
The three scenarios are labelled Base Case, Stronger Favourites and Weaker Favourites, with the probabilities for the first 8 games in each scenario based on the opening head-to-head market prices on TAB Sportsbet and the remaining probabilities set to be broadly consistently with the scenario name.
So, for example, in the Base Case scenario, West Coast are slight favourites over Richmond in Round 22, as they have an assigned probability of 55% (ie 0.55). This rises to 65% in the Stronger Favourites scenario and 50% - that is, equal favouritism - in the Weaker Favourites scenario.
Okay, now to the interesting part: what outcomes do we get for each of these scenarios?
Here's the summary detail for each team of the probability of Top 4 and Top 8 finishes and the most likely ladder position under each of the scenarios:
Across the scenarios, we find that:
No other team finished in the Top 8 in any of the simulations for any of the scenarios.
All of which means that, if you believe the probabilities I've used for the scenarios:
Which is probably why, on TAB Sportsbet, there is no longer a Spoon market.
Well last weekend's results certainly altered the finals landscape, leaving all of the teams currently in ladder positions 1 through 11 with legitimate dreams of playing in September and all of the teams in positions 1 through 7 with hopes for a top 4 finish and the double chance.
With the aid of the latest ELO projections, let's take a look at what's left for the teams in contention.
St Kilda have probably the easiest run home of all the teams in the competition. They face 9th placed Essendon away (hence the '9', the 'Ess' and the 'A' in the entry for St Kilda for Round 20, which is coloured green because ELO predicts the Saints will win this game), 13th placed Kangaroos at home, and then last placed Melbourne away. So, give them three wins and 1st place, with only the Dons as a realistic threat to a 22 and 0 home-and-away season.
Geelong have a slightly more challenging finish, starting with faint-hope finalists Sydney away this weekend, followed by the Dogs away, and then Fremantle at home. They should win all three of these games; regardless, they finish 2nd.
Collingwood face the in-form but out-of-contention Richmond this weekend, before matching up with the Swans in a game that'll matter much more to the Swans if they've knocked off the Cats in Round 20. In the final round the Pies take on the Dogs, but by that point they will most likely have secured 3rd place.
The Western Bulldogs have an horrendous last 3 weeks of the home-and-away season comprising contests with teams no lower than 5th on the ladder. First up is an away game with the Lions, then a home game against the Cats, and, finally, another home game, this one against the Pies. ELO has them winning 2 of these 3 contests and therefore securing 4th spot on percentages, but it's easy to see them dropping another 1 or even 2 of these games and missing a top 4 spot.
Carlton have what could be described as an awkward finish to the season, including as it does two teams that are in finals contention: Port Adelaide, who they play away this week, and Adelaide, who they play at home in the final round. In the middle they have the 4-point insurance that comes from playing the Dees. ELO has the Blues winning 3 and they should at least manage 2, making them a possible top 4 finisher.
Adelaide also have an awkward finish, starting with the 'surprised to still be in it' Hawks away this weekend, followed by the Eagles at home, and rounding out with a tricky away contest against the Blues. ELO's credited them with 2 wins, though you could make a good case for 1 or for 3 wins. The Crows should comfortably make the 8 and might yet surprise and jag a top 4 spot, but I'd treat this as unlikely.
If awkwardity is quantifiable (or, indeed, even a word) then the Brisbane Lions have more of it in their run home than any other team. This weekend they face the Dogs at home, then Port again at home, and, lastly, Sydney away, who might still have a sniff at that point but probably won't. ELO's giving the Lions just 1 win from that lot, but 2 is conceivable, even 3 if the gods of oblate spheroids are smiling on them. They'll make the 8 but almost certainly not the top 4.
Hawthorn can, amazingly, lose again this week - to the Crows at home - but still sneak into the finals with back-to-back wins against Richmond away and Essendon at home to complete a 10-12 season and pip Port on percentages. One possibility is that the Hawks will face the Dons in Round 22 with a place in the finals at stake for both of them.
Port Adelaide could also slip into the 8 with just 40 points and having lost 2 of their last 3 games. They face Carlton at home this week, then the Lions away and the Roos at home. If they can win 2 of these then the Hawks will need to win all 3 of theirs to deny Port a finals berth.
Essendon will probably finish just 1 win short of the finals. They play Saints at home this week, then Freo away and then the Hawks also away. It might, as I noted above, all come down to the Round 22 clash with the Hawks.
Sydney have the faintest of finals hopes, but would need to topple the Cats at home, Collingwood away, and then the Lions at home to realise that dream. Frankly I think I'm more likely to win Lotto - and I don't even buy tickets.
For the rest of the teams it's all about draft picks and dealing with tanking speculation.
The top 8 of the MARS Projected Final Table after Round 18 differs from the current ladder only in that Adelaide and Collingwood trade places. MARS predicts that Adelaide will grab 4th spot on the back of four straight wins over the remainder of the season, skipping them past the Pies, who win only two more, beating Richmond and Sydney but losing to Adelaide and the Dogs.
Under the MARS scenario, 4th place will still be undecided as we move into Round 22.
Here's MARS' current projected final table and the predicted results that will produce it:
The key clash for Adelaide looms as the Round 20 matchup with the Hawks, which MARS has the Crows winning by a point. Assuming that Hawthorn lose in Round 19 to the Saints and beat Richmond and Essendon in Rounds 21 and 22, Hawthorn will need to down the Crows to have a chance at securing 8th spot, knocking Port out of the eight and relegating the Crows to 5th, behind the Pies.
Collingwood might otherwise grab a spot in the top 4 if they defeat the Bulldogs, as might the Lions if they, instead, beat the Dogs.
Essendon are projected to miss the 8 by two games, as MARS forecasts them to lose to the Lions, St Kilda and Hawthorn, securing a solitary victory over a floundering Fremantle in Round 21.
Sydney, though still a mathematical chance to reach 44 points and therefore press for a finals spot, would need to topple Richmond, Geelong, Collingwood and the Lions in successive weeks to do so, which seems about as likely at the moment as the AFL relenting and changing the rules for the draft.
With just 6 rounds to go in the competition, a few articles are emerging about how the teams will fare over the remainder of the season and, most importantly, who'll finish where in the top 8.
Using the MARS Ratings from MAFL Stats I've also predicted the results for the remainder of the season, details of which appear below:
On the right of the table I've provided the game-by-game projections for each team. Green boxes denote victories, red losses, and a bracketed "H", "A" or "N" denote Home, Away and Neutral Ground venues respectively.
If these projections are accurate, there's not a lot of change that we'll see amongst the top 8. In fact, we'll see no change at all in terms of its membership and only a couple of significant changes in terms of its ordering.
Carlton, I'm forecasting, will leap 3 places and secure a top 4 spot, beating Collingwood (currently 4th), the Roos (12th), Port (9th), Melbourne (15th), and Adelaide (6th) in so doing, losing only to the 2nd-placed Geelong in Round 19. This string of results will draw Carlton level with the Lions on 56 points, but will see them grab 4th with a superior percentage.
Collingwood will surrender their top 4 spot, dropping to 6th due to losses to Carlton (7th), Adelaide (6th), and the Dogs (3rd). Victories over the Lions (5th), Richmond (14th), and Sydney (11th) won't be enough.
Port Adelaide and Hawthorn are projected to finish level with the Dons on 44 points but will miss a spot in the eight on percentages, in Hawthorn's case despite finishing the season with a three-game winning streak.
The last three weeks has had quite an effect on ELO's projected end of season ladder, as you can see in the table below.
The top 3 positions are unchanged, firmly held by the Cats, Saints and Dogs, but there's significant movement amongst the next 8.
Carlton moves from the fringes of the top 8 into 4th, dethroning the Pies who drop to 6th. The Lions and Sydney - both now projected to win two more games than thought previously - move into the top 8 at the expense of the two Adelaide teams, who both now miss out on a finals spot based on (my proxy of) percentages.
Making the final 8 now requires 11 wins, which is more in keeping with seasons past than the 10 wins that were projected previously. Also, the teams that make up the projected final 8 are the same teams that currently occupy the top 8 teams on the competition ladder.
Positions 11 through 16 are all held by the same teams as in the earlier projections, albeit that there's been some interesting but inconsequential rearrangements. Unrearranged though is Melbourne, now projected to lose all of its remaining games.
This year I've adapted the ELO-based MARS Rating system so that it now provides a margin of victory as well as a tip for each game. Based on the current ratings, these margins and tips can be generated for all the remaining home and away matches and these, in turn, can be combined with the existing table to arrive at a projected end of season table.
Well, I've just done this and the results appear below.
(Because MARS provides a margin but not a score for each game, I've had to use the difference between points for and points against - rather than percentage - as my tiebreaker when teams are equal on competition points. Generally the two approaches will produce the same ordering, but not always.)
Our projections have Hawthorn and Adelaide slipping into the top 8 at the expense of the Lions and the Dons.
Adelaide is a particularly interesting case to look at. It is projected to finish 7th despite currently being 12th on the ladder and ranked only 10th on current MARS Ratings. So, how can it be projected to climb 5 ladder positions? It's on the strength of its easier draw for the remainder of the season.
Collingwood is another team that appears to benefit from its draw according to MARS Ratings, though less so than does Adelaide. The Pies are projected to finish 4th despite currently being 8th on the ladder and ranked only 5th by MARS.
In contrast to Adelaide and Collingwood, Carlton suffers, to a small degree, from a difficult remaining draw, evidenced by the fact that its projected final ladder position is below both its current ladder position and its current MARS Ranking. All other teams are projected to finish in a position that is between (or equal to) their current ladder position and current MARS Ranking.
One other notable feature of the projected ladder is that it takes only 10 wins to make the final 8 whereas, historically, it has usually taken 12 or 13 wins. This is due to the projected dominance of Geelong and St Kilda; their combined projected 43 wins doesn't leave many points to go around.
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