If ever you wanted evidence to support the aphorism that it's unwise to pre-emptorily enumerate your poultry, Sunday afternoon's Fremantle v Melbourne game is it.

At the first change Freo had already covered the spread, up 31 points facing just a 26.5 point handicap (which, of course, we'd conceded). By half time, Freo had extended its lead to 39 points and I was mentally adding the value of a Fremantle head-to-head and line win to the weekly tally. But then the Dees rallied, kicking the first 6 goals of the third term before heading into the sheds at three-quarter time just 8 points down, then closing within a kick for large portions of the final term, only to fall short by 11 points.

So, the Recommended Portfolio chalked up a small profit on this game, adding to the small profit accrued across the seven earlier games, to leave it up 1.7% for the weekend and now down just 9.7% for the season.

It'd all started so much more positively for the Recommend Portfolio, however, with the first three contests producing the required results, including underdog wins by the Crows and the Pies. Essendon started the nonsense after starting promisingly to lead 26 to 9 mid way through the first term of their game, before allowing 6 goals in each of the next two terms and eventually going down by over 5 goals to the bottom-of-the-table Eagles.

The Dogs then narrowly did what was asked of them, winning and covering the spread by just 3.5 points, before Richmond nodded off in the third term of their game, kicking just one behind to the Roos' 5.3, triggering a 50-point loss that was as expensive to Investors as it was to the Tigers' finals aspirations (if they had any).

Still, at least the Recommended Portfolio moved a mite closer to season-long profitability, which is something that can't be said of MIN#002's portfolio, which dropped 1.9%, and MIN#017's portfolio, which dropped 5.4%.

Here's the latest Dashboard with all the details.

The Heuristic-Based and ELO-Line Funds both ventured further into profitable territory this week and these Funds remain the only two that have been profitable across the season. Hope and Prudence are though within just a few cents of that same exalted status. Amongst the other Funds, Shadow probably needs a few weeks of solid profitably to reach the magic $1 price point, and New Heritage requires - well, let's just call it an extended run of favourable outcomes (sorry MIN#017).

On tipping, Easily Impressed II and Ride Your Luck produced the weekend's best performances, each bagging 6 from 8, which was enough to drag Easily Impressed II into joint leadership of the MAFL Tipping Competition alongside Easily Impressed I on 85.5/128 or about 67%. BKB had a terrible round, scoring just 3 from 8, consigning it to equal third-last.

Positions on the MARS Ratings table were swapped like guernseys at a Grand Final this week, as every team but Geelong and St Kilda found themselves in a different ladder position to that which they occupied at the commencement of the round.

Hawthorn and West Coast were the week's biggest climbers, jumping two places to 5th and 14th respectively, while Carlton were easily the week's biggest fallers, dropping three places to 9th as a result of losing to the Swans by 39 points.

Other climbers were Collingwood, Sydney, Adelaide, the Roos and Melbourne, and other fallers were the Dogs, Lions, Freo, Essendon, Port and Richmond.

Nine teams are still rated over 1,000, and the gap between 9th and 10th is a little over 16 Ratings points.

With so many upset and sizeable wins this weekend, all Margin Tippers suffered. Every Margin Tipper's Mean APE declined, by amounts ranging from 0.4 to 0.7 points, leaving BKB remaining in 1st position on this metric and LAMP and HAMP in 2nd and 3rd, HAMP nudging ELO into 4th.

With the exception of HAMP, Margin Tippers' Median APEs also rose this week. This left LAMP leading on this metric and ELO and HAMP in joint 2nd.

HELP recorded 4 from 8 on line betting - the same score that the Super Smart Model recorded - and generated probability scores of no particular note.

The Super Smart Model recorded a Mean APE for the round of just over 39 points per game, which is virtually identical to the MAPE recorded by BKB, so there's nothing much to write about there either.

The Bookie Probability Model's two home-team wagers on the Crows and the Pies would both have been successful.

To finish, I'll note that this season continues to be one in which the benefits of leading are manifest. In only 15 of the 127 games so far in which there has been a clear winner has that winner not been the team leading at 3-quarter time, and in only one more game has that winner been tied at three-quarter time. What's more, no team has been rundown after leading by 3 goals or more at three-quarter time, and only 3 teams have been rundown after leading by 3 goals or more at half-time, and only 2 after leading by 3 or more goals at quarter-time.