This week will be an interesting test of the predictive efficacy of statistics and Ratings compared to ladder position and history, as a far lesser-Rated Minor Premier playing at home meets an apparently much better-credentialled opponent that finished 3rd on the ladder at the end of the home-and-away season.

The Bookmaker certainly agrees, directionally at least, with MARS' assessment of the relative strengths of the teams this week, though the Head-to-Head algorithm assesses that the Bookmaker's pricing of the underdog Dockers is nonetheless attractive enough for a moderate-sized wager on them at $2.35. 

MoS' Line Fund algorithm also thinks that the 8.5 points start enjoyed by the Dockers and the 29.5 points start offered by the Eagles are attractive enough to warrant wagers on each in their respective line contests.

Combined, that means the Dockers carry easily the largest upset and downside for Investors this week, a Dockers win promising a positive return of about 1.5c and a loss by 9 points or more threatening a loss of about 1.2c. By contrast, the best the Eagles could do would be to add 0.3c to the Overall Portfolio by winning by 30 points or more, and the worst they could do would be to lop 0.4c from the Overall Portfolio by winning by less than this, drawing, or losing.

All told, two favourable results would add about 1.9c to the Overall Portfolio, while two unfavourable results would strip about 1.6c from it.

HEAD-TO-HEAD TIPS

This week there's contention amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters only in the Fremantle v Hawthorn game where eight Tipsters, who collectively fill the bottom eight places on the MoS Leaderboard, have opted for the underdog Dockers.

In the other game, there's unanimous support for the home team favourites, the Eagles.

That means the Tipsters at the head of the MoS Leaderboard have shown unanimous support for both bookmaker favourites, so no movement in the rankings in this portion of the table can be expected.

C_Marg's four tip lead over Bookie_9 and Combo_7 is, therefore, not going to change between the start and finish of this round.

MARGIN PREDICTIONS

The Margin Predictors' opinions mostly mirror those of the Head-to-Head Tipsters, with just a handful of lesser-performed Predictors opting for a Fremantle win, and with all Predictors tipping an Eagles win.

In the Friday night game, C_Marg is predicting the largest Hawks win (16 points) while H2H_Adjusted_7 and ProPred_3 are predicting the largest Dockers win (5 points). Saturday's game sees Combo_NN2 predicting the largest Eagles win (54 points), and Win3 predicting the smallest Eagles win (10 points).

Combined, the predictions for the Fremantle v Hawthorn game have the smaller Mean Absolute Deviation (6.4 points per Predictor) and Range (21 points), while those for the West Coast v Kangaroos game have the larger Mean Absolute Deviation (6.9 points per Predictor) and Range (44 points).

C_Marg, the current MoS Margin Prediction Leader, will surrender at most 9 of its 130 point lead over ENS_Greedy should results be least favourable to it. C_Marg needs an aggregate error margin across the two games of 53 points or less in order to reduce its season-long Mean Absolute Error (MAE) below 30. No other Predictor is capable of reducing its MAE below 30 before the end of the season (barring a string of accurately predicted draws necessitating replays).

PROBABILITY PREDICTION

The Dockers v Hawks contest has also engendered higher levels of disagreement amongst the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors than has the Eagles v Roos contest, opinions in the former being book-ended by C_Prob's 33% and ProPred's 57% assessments, and in the latter by WinPred's 66% and ProPred's 82% assessments.

C_Prob, MoS' best Head-to-Head Probability Predictor so far this season, therefore has most to lose from a Fremantle upset victory. No combination of results, however, would be enough to see it surrender its lead.

MoS' Line Fund algorithm has again this week, in the context of the entire season, been relatively conservative, though it has assessed Fremantle as about 58% chances and West Coast as about 53% chances, both of which have been sufficient to trigger Line Fund wagers. Concern for Investors would be the fact that the Line Fund is 12 and 23 for games where it's assessed the Home team as 58% chances or greater this year.