After a week where the bookmakers expected a slew of closely-fought contests, this week sees the average TAB handicap out to almost 23 points per game, which is the third-highest average for a round this season.

Whilst that average of 22.7 points per game is high in the context of 2017, you can see from the table at right that it isn't particularly high in an historical context.

Nonetheless, disagreement levels are low amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters, the Overall Disagreement Index of 18% about 2% points below the all-season average of 20%. Were it not for Home Sweet Home's 60% Index, we might well have seen an Overall value closer to 12 or 13%.

Most importantly in the context of the MoS Leaderboard, the top 4 Tipsters - MoSSBODS_Marg, RSMP_Simple, RSMP_Weighted, and MoSHBODS_Marg - have all tipped identical winners for the round. As such, we'll not be seeing any change in their ordering come Sunday night.

In fact, every Tipster apart from Home Sweet Home has tipped identically in every game except the Dogs v Dons clash where six of them have lined up behind the underdog Dogs.

The Margin Predictors' average mean absolute deviation (MAD) this week is just 3.0 points per Predictor per game, which is a season record-low. Even C_Marg, which has, of course, the highest MAD, has come in at only 5.1 points per game.

The MoS twins have registered uncharacteristically low MADs, well behind the 2nd- and 3rd-highest MADs of Bookie_3 (4.8) and Bookie_9 (4.0).

MoSHBODS_Marg now leads the RSMP Predictors by about 2 goals, and will extend that lead if:

Melbourne win by 2 points or less (9 point gain)
Richmond win by 6 points or less (8 point gain)
West Coast win by 43 points or less (10 point gain)

From a game-by-game perspective, none carry a MAD of greater than 4.0 points per Predictor, the highest MAD of 3.9 coming in the West Coast v Brisbane Lions game. The Dogs v Dons game has a MAD of only 2.6 points per Predictor, but also a range of forecasts spanning either side of zero but covering just 9 points.

The Head-to-Head Probability Predictors have also produced a low Overall MAD for the round of just 3.1% points per Predictor per game, which is the lowest since Round 14 and over a full percentage point below the all-season average of 4.1% points.

Eliciting the largest MADs are the Roos v Dees (5.8%), Suns v Tigers (4.4%), and Dogs v Dons (4.3%) clashes.

C_Prob has the round's highest MAD (4.2% points per game), ahead of MoSHBODS_Prob (3.7% points per game), and then Bookie_RE (3.2% points per game).

WAGERS

Investors have five head-to-head and only two line bets this week, four of those seven sized at 0.6% or less of the respective Fund. In total, they represent only 1.8% of initial Overall Funds, which is the lowest single-round proportion since Round 13 and the second-lowest proportion for the season.

That cautiousness in bet size and number limits the downside, but the selection of five underdogs by the Head-to-Head Fund has made for a non-trivial level of upside.

The largest upsides and downsides are in the Roos v Dees, and Suns v Tigers games where upset victories by the home teams would add just over 1% to the value of the Overall Portfolio, and unsurprising losses would strip about 0.5% or a little more from the value of that Portfolio.