The MoS twins are, once again, slightly more pessimistic than the bookmakers about the return to high-scoring contests, but at least the pessimism discount now seems to be locked in at around half a goal. This week, their average expected total is 162 to the bookmakers’ 164 to 165.

The twins have the Dogs v Lions game as the likely high-scoring game of the round, while the two bookmakers have it as the Hawks v Giants game. For low-scoring game of the round the twins like the Saints v Eagles game, the bookmakers the Dockers v Tigers game.

For most-likely high-scoring team all four forecasters have gone with Collingwood, while for most-likely low-scoring team all four have gone with Collingwood’s opponents, Carlton, although MoSSBODS has them in a tie with West Coast.

Collingwood is the only team tipped to score three figures by any of the forecasters this weekend, and even then by only three of the forecasters.

PERFORMANCE TO DATE

MoSHBODS had the best forecasts last weekend, producing the lowest mean absolute error (MAE) on all four measures. That left them 1st overall on Home Team Score MAE, but also allowed them to slip past MoSSBODS on Total Score MAE. MoSSBODS remains ahead on Game Margin MAE and Away Team Score MAE.

Seven rounds in and still consistently out-forecasting the bookmakers. Remarkable.

WAGERS

Three more wagers this week, though there would have been a fourth, overs wager in the Dogs v Lions game were it not for a forecast of rain for that match.

In the three games where we’ve wagered, overlays range from about 8.5 to 20 points, the latter for the Saints v Eagles game where MoSSBODS has the away team scoring about 4 goals less than do the bookmakers.

(The overlay in the Dogs v Lions game is estimated to be 3 goals, which makes it tempting to take the overs anyway, notwithstanding the weather forecast, but I’ve never been a fan of changing your wagering rules mid-season, so we’re sitting this one out and hoping for torrential rain.)

After last week, MoSSBODS record against the TAB has slipped to 7 and 4 thanks to an errant first-of-the-season overs bet, while its record against Easybet moved to 16 and 9. Overall, we’ve landed 64% of our wagers.

Across all games, MoSSBODS is at 64% against the TAB and 67% against Easybet, while MoSHBODS is at 62% against the TAB and 64% against Easybet. With 63 games in the sample, those percentages are all statistically significant - or very close to - at the 95% confidence level.