Just three games this week are expected to finish with a margin under 3 goals, but seven with a margin under 5 goals, which has made for an all-game average of about the same as last weekend's 24.5 points per game. This week, it's 24.2 points per game.

That's lifted the 2018 season average to 20.5 points per game, but virtually assures us that the final 2018 home and away season average will finish somewhere between 2017's and 2015's averages. Only about a 43 point per game average for Round 23 - which would be the highest for any round in the period shown - would push the 2018 average above 2015's.

The median will definitely fall between 2017's and 2015's

Let's see what the MoS forecasters make of the penultimate round of the 2018 home and away season.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

There's almost no dissension amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters this week, with only Home Sweet Home opting for the underdog in three games, and Consult The Ladder in one. Elsewhere, it's wall-to-wall favourites.

That means ENS_Linear, Bookie Knows Best and the two RSMP Tipsters are in complete alignment across all nine games, so there'll again be no movement at the top of the Leaderboard this week.

The MoS twins as Margin Predictors, however, have again gone decidedly contrarian, with mean absolute deviations (MADs) of 7.5 points per game for MoSHBODS_Marg, and 6.1 points per game for MoSSBODS_Marg. MoSHBODS_Marg has the extreme forecast in four contests, and MoSSBODS_Marg in three. Bookie_3 also has the extreme forecast in three contests and has a slightly higher MAD than MoSSBODS_Marg, at 6.3 points per game.

The all-Predictor all-game MAD is 4.2 points per game per Predictor, which is just 0.1 points less than last week's.

On a game-by-game basis, we find five with MADs of 4.5 points per Predictor or higher, highest of all for GWS v Sydney, and St Kilda v Hawthorn, thanks in both cases to the MoS twins. The range of forecast margins in those two games is around 4 goals.

In comparison to the current leader, Bookie_Hcap, a best set of results for MoSSBODS_Marg would see it move from about 98 points behind to about 38 points behind, while a best set of results for MoSHBODS_Marg would see it move from about 196 to about 105 points behind.

The mean expected margin across the nine games and all Margin Predictors is 23.2 points per game, which is about a point below the TAB Bookmaker's average.

Turning lastly to the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, we find the highest MADs in the same two games where the MADs are highest amongst the Margin Predictors. Here the MADs range from 7.4% points to 9.6% points per Predictor.

MoSHBODS_Prob again has the round's highest MAD, ahead of MoSSBODS_Prob and C_Prob.

WAGERS

No erroneous bets this week - or, at least, none I can confidently label as that in advance - but we do have five wagers from a defiant MoSHBODS in the head-to-head markets with sizes ranging from 0.2% to 7.8% (sic), and two wagers from MoSSBODS in the line markets, both sized at about 4%.

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

There are large potential swings in two games this week, the Giants v Swans, and Saints v Hawks contests, where best and worst results differ in their impact on the Combined Portfolio by over 7c.

As ever, the details are in this week's Ready Reckoner, which appears below.