As I write this, the bookmakers have Melbourne and Collingwood as favourites for the upcoming semi-finals, but only by about 13 and 9 points respectively, so there’d be no great surprise were there to be upsets in both games.

(It’s a discussion for another day - and I have run a Twitter poll on it - but I reckon any underdog victory can rightly be called an ‘upset’, however slight the underdog. It’s fair to say that opinion is divided on this, and there are people with outright contemptuous opinions about my contention. Mindless contempt on Twitter - who would have guessed?”)

Anyway, you’ve heard the experts’ opinions then - what about the MoS models’.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

Despite the expected narrowness of the victories in both games, the only dissension this week comes from two relatively predictable sources in the form of Consult The Ladder and Home Sweet Home. Note that, again this week, Home Sweet Home selects the notional home teams and Consult The Ladder selects the teams that finished higher during the home and away season.

That, of course, means that ENS_Linear, Bookie Knows Best and the two RSMP Tipsters are, yet again, in complete alignment, so there'll be no movement at the top of the Leaderboard once more this week. ENS_Linear will therefore lead by tips with just three games to play at the end of the weekend.

For the Margin Predictors, it's MoSSBODS_Marg who is most bearish about the home team in both contests, Bookie_9 who is most bullish about Hawthorn (though still doesn’t think they’ll win), and Bookie_3 who is most bullish about Collingwood.

The mean absolute deviations (MADs) for both games are small, however, and the forecasts span about 4.5 goals in the Hawthorn v Melbourne game, and 2.5 goals in the Collingwood v GWS game.

In comparison to the current leader, Bookie_Hcap, a best set of results for MoSSBODS_Marg would see it move from about 76 points behind to about 65 points behind, while a best set of results for MoSHBODS_Marg would see it move from about 208 to about 201 points behind.

Turning lastly to the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, we find MoSSBODS_Prob assigning the lowest victory probability estimates to Hawthorn and Collingwood, C_Prob assigning the highest probability to Hawthorn, and Bookie-LPSO the highest probability to Collingwood.

The MADs for both game are low, and the estimates span ranges of only 9% points in both.

WAGERS

There’s only one head-to-head wager and no line wagers this weekend (as well as a single overs bet, which we’ll discuss in a subsequent blog).

That lone head-to-head wager is on the Giants at $2.45, MoSSBODS expecting them to back up after the collect on them at $2.20 last week.

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

There’s no need for a Ready Reckoner this week, as the maths on a single wager is fairly straightforward:

• If GWS win, the impact on the Combined Portfolio is 35% x 0.7% x 1.45, which is +0.4%

• If GWS draw, the impact on the Combined Portfolio is 35% x 0.7% x (2.45/2 - 1), which is +0.1%

• If GWS lose, the impact on the Combined Portfolio is 35% x -0.7%, which is -0.2%

Overall then, the swing from win to loss is just 0.6%.

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.