2012 Round 1a : More a Whimper Than a Bang

You really couldn't have manufactured a quieter start to the season: one game, expected to be a blowout, and then nothing for 5 days.

Only the Margin Fund could have wagered on the week's sole game, and with the Giants - though that capital G doesn't yet seem deserved - at an unprecedented $21 in the head-to-head market, there wasn't much chance that the Margin Fund's algorithm was going to spit out "Home team win by X" for any but an imaginary value of X. So, we've nothing but the love of football - and perhaps the joy of mentally wagering on how large the margin - to interest us in Saturday's contest.

Since there's another Wednesday to intervene between the Sydney derby and the remainder of the round, I'm not locking in the predictions of any of the head-to-head or margin predictors at this point for any game other than the Giants v Swans.

All of which makes for a non-existent set of wagers and a fairly dreary set of tips, margin predictions and probability assessment. Regardless, here's what we have:

 

Apart from poor HSH, forced by its own policy to tip the Giants, none of the tipsters has any inclination towards GWS. All other Head-to-Head Tipsters are backing the Swans and, while some of the Margin Predictors seem to have been a little lame - or maybe kind - in the size of their margin predictions, they're still all opting for a Sydney win by at least 10 and by as much as 80 points. The average prediction is for about a 6 goal victory by the Swans, which is a result that I think even diehard Giants fans would sign up for it we were to offer it to them now.

The Head-to-Head Probability Predictors rate the Giants chances as being somewhere between 6% and 32%, while the Line Predictor thinks that they'll more likely than not fail to cover the 99.5 point spread on offer.

We're hardly starting the season with a blockbuster, are we?