It’s incredible just how rusty you become in running your code and cranking out tables after only six months away from the discipline …

Welcome to the 2019 AFL Mens season where I’ll once again be providing winner, margin and probability forecasts for every game and, for the first time in MoS history, bothering to use player information in putting those forecasts together (although you’ll need to wait for the teams to be named before you’ll get those - I guess I could build a model to predict what the teams are most likely to be, but … let’s not.)

Round 1 - if the TAB bookmaker is to be believed - shapes up as a less even one than was forecast for the same rounds in 2017 and 2018, where the mean predicted margin was a couple of points per game lower.

Still, we have six games expected to be decided by about 3 goals or less, and only one by as much as 6 goals, so we’ve not a great deal to complain about. That is, unless we wind up with actual Round 1 margins like those of last year where the average victory margin was almost 8 goals per game.

Total scores will also be of special interest this season, with the new rules specifically designed to bump up scoring compared to last year’s historical lows. We’d be wise though to wait before making a call on the success of those new rules, as the early rounds of seasons are generally more high-scoring than those from later in the season.

Anyway, to the forecasters.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

Most of the Head-to-Head Tipsters have generally gone with the favourites this week, with only the Fremantle v North Melbourne game generating any significant level of support for the underdogs, which there is North Melbourne.

Home Sweet Home has been its usual contrarian self right from the off, opting for the home team underdogs in three games this week, though it has been matched in its capriciousness by MoSSBODS_Marg.

Consult The Ladder and MoSHBODS_Marg are the only other Tipsters to lean underdog in more than a single game.

Amongst the Margin Predictors we see 20-point plus ranges in only the first and the last two games of the round, and far narrower ranges in most of the remainder. Only the Fremantle v North Melbourne game has more than a couple of Predictors on the opposite side of zero relative to the consensus.

The mean expected margin across the nine games and all Margin Predictors is 14.1 points per game, which is roughly 2 points below the TAB Bookmaker's average.

MoSSBODS_Marg has the most extreme forecasts in four of the games, and C_Marg and Bookie_3 in three.

Turning lastly to the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, we find the largest range in percentage point terms in the final two games of the round where the forecasts span around 20% points. MoSSBODS_Prob has the round's most extreme forecasts in five contests, and C_Prob in four.

WAGERS

Prohibiting the Head-to-Head Fund from wasting money on away teams has kept its wagering activity down to a single bet, with apparent opportunities on Geelong, Hawthorn, Essendon, and North Melbourne let pass. Its sole wager is a mere 1.6% on the Western Bulldogs at $2.25.

(See this post for details about how the Funds will work this year.)

The Line Fund, with no such constraints, has opted for four wagers ranging in size from 0.2% to 2.9%, three of them on away teams.

A summary of the Head-to-Head’s and Line Fund’s wagers appear below. Note that I’ve retained the star ratings for potential away team head-to-head wagers even though I’ve decided not to act on these opportunities this season. Be assured that we’ll revisit the wisdom of this decision at various points in the season ahead.

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

Only four of the round’s nine games carry any risk this week, and only three are of material consequence.

The round's largest potential swing comes in the Dogs v Swans game, where a Dogs win would lift the Combined Portfolio by 1.6c, and a Dogs loss by 9 points or more would drop it by 1.7c.

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

In total, 4.4% of the original Combined Portfolio is at risk across just five games, and the maximum upside is 4.1%. 

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

Commentary about these forecasts will come in the week's Overs/Unders blog and MoSHPlay’s various forecasts will be posted after the relevant team line-ups are made public.