This week sees the largest bookmaker average expected margin of the season - an average that also exceeds that for every round of 2017.

That figure of 23.8 points per game is elevated by the roughly six-goal expected margins in the Sydney v North Melbourne, and Richmond v Fremantle games, and by the roughly nine-goal expected margin in the Adelaide v Carlton game.

Five other of the games have expected margins of around three goals or less, however, so there's still quite a bit of work to do to tip a full set of winners.

On which topic, let's see what the MoS forecasters foresee.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

It's almost all quiet on the contrarian front amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters this week, with only Home Sweet Home (in 3 games), Consult The Ladder (in 2 games), and the MoS twins (in 1 game each) siding with the underdogs in any game.

Amongst the Margin Predictors, it's MoSHBODS_Marg that's most defiantly contrarian, its forecasts differing from the all-Predictor average by over 7 points per game. MoSSBODS_Marg (6.5) and C_Marg (6.4) aren't far behind. When you're filling the last three spots on the Leaderboard, you're not going to climb very far if you just hug the average, so this is arguably a good thing.

At the game level, there are no huge mean absolute deviations (MADs), though six of the nine contests have moderately large MADs in the 4.2 to 5.7 points per Predictor range.

The mean expected margin across the nine games and across all Margin Predictors is 22.2 points per game, which again this week a little lower than the TAB average of 23.8.

Turning lastly to the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors we find C_Prob in its usual place with the all-Predictor high MAD of 6.0% points per game, with MoSHBODS_Prob (5.4% points) and MoSSBODS_Prob (4.2% points) trailing a little way behind.

The St Kilda v Melbourne game carries this week's largest MAD at 7.6% points per Predictor, as the C_Prob and MoS twins find themselves about 15% points more bullish about the Saints' chances than are the bookmaker-based Predictors.

WAGERS

If last week Investors had most of their eggs in one basket, this week they've enough baskets to thrill Yogi Bear.

They've head-to-head wagers in seven contests totalling a little over 12% of the original Head-to-Head Fund, and line wagers in six contests totalling almost 7.5% of the original Line Fund.

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

Only two of the head-to-head wagers and one of the line wagers are on favourites, which means that there's collectively more upside than downside in the 13 wagers when aggregated.

The ready reckoner, which quantifies this, appears below.

The two most-important games in the round are the Swans v Roos, and Saints v Dees games, which both carry swings of around 4% of the Combined Portfolio. Next most important are the Cats v Giants, and Dogs v Suns games, which both carry swings of a little over 2.5%.

It's possible that Investors could wake up on Sunday morning with no prospect of a profit from these 13 wagers, but it'd take a brutal Friday and Saturday to make that the case.

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