This week comprises four games where the expected margin is under two goals, and five more where it's five goals or more, which has landed the all-game average at just under 27 points per game, the third-highest average for a round in the season to date.

The contrast with last season is becoming starker by the week, with nine of the last 10 rounds now having had a higher average expected margin this season than in the matching round of 2017. As well, the all-season average of 19.9 points per game is almost 2 points higher than the final average for last year's home-and-away season.

Still, looked at with a broader historical lens, it's still considerably better than the five years from 2012 to 2016.

And, looked at from a MoS model's lens ...

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

It's yet another largely dissension-free weekend for the Head-to-Head Tipsters, with only the Lions v Crows game attracting more than a single hand raised for the underdogs. In that game, both the MoS twins, C_Marg, and Home Sweet Home are tipping a Lions upset.

For all of the Tipsters at the head of the Leaderboard, it's nine games, nine favourites, so we'll be seeing no movement there.

There are much higher levels of disagreement amongst the Margin Predictors, though, with six of them producing mean absolute deviations (MADs) of more than 4 points per game. Highest is C_Marg's 5.9 points per game, ahead of Bookie_3's 5.3 and then a pair of 4.8s from the MoS twins.

Looking across the matches, five have MADs of 4.9 points per Predictor or higher. The Brisbane Lions v Adelaide game has the highest MAD of 6.7 points (and a 22 point prediction range), and the Sydney v Gold Coast game the second-highest MAD of 6.5 points (and a 19 point prediction range).

In comparison to the current leader, Bookie_Hcap, a best set of results for MoSSBODS_Marg would see it move from about 53 points behind to about 5 points ahead, while a best set of results for MoSHBODS_Marg would see it move from about 150 to about 91 points behind.

The mean expected margin across the nine games and all Margin Predictors is 25.3 points per game, about 1.4 points a game lower than the TAB bookmaker's average.

Turning lastly to the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, we find the largest MAD in the probability estimates for the Brisbane Lions v Adelaide game where it is 9.3% points per Predictor. The range of estimates for the Lions' chances in that game span Bookie_RE's low of 40% to C_Prob's high of 63%. 

No other game has a MAD about 3.7% points, however, so the all-game average is quite low by historical standards. MADs at the Predictor level are also all quite low, the highest being C_Prob's and a modest 3.4% points per game.

WAGERS

We've four wagers again from MoSHBODS in the head-to-head markets this week - one large and three moderate in size, and all on underdogs - and three wagers from MoSSBODS in the line markets, though only one there that's much more than a rounding error.

(Please click on the image below to access a larger version.)

The two largest wagers from the twins are on the Lions in their game against the Crows, which accordingly carries the round's largest swing of 5.7%. Amongst the remaining games, only the Saints v Tigers game has a swing of over 1%.

In total, 3.4% of the original Combined Portfolio is at risk and the maximum upside is 7%. 

To finish, here are MoSHBODS' and MoSSBODS' opinions about likely team scoring.

Commentary about these forecasts will come in the week's Overs/Unders blog.