The MoS twins’ treat Finals a little differently than regular home-and-away games - mostly in how they estimate Venue Performance Values (VPVs) - which this week has produced Totals forecasts that are higher than the bookmakers’ in three of the four games.

As you can see from the table at right, if recent history is any guide, some downward adjustment to Totals in Finals is certainly warranted.

More specifically, it shows that in only two of the past 20 seasons have average scores in Finals exceeded the average scores for the home-and-away season that directly preceded those Finals, with the difference usually being about 10 to 20 points per game.

What it also shows, however, is that the adjustments MoSSBODS has made have led in recent seasons to generally lower mean absolute errors in Totals forecasts for Finals as compared to those for home-and-away games. So, whatever it’s been doing seems to have been working.

But, given that, as noted earlier, these MoSSBODS adjustments have mostly related to VPVs, it’ll be interesting to see if that superior performance in Finals is repeated this year where estimating venue effects has been something of a coin toss.

WAGERS

So different, in fact, are MoSSBODS’ forecasts this week, that Investors find themselves with a wager in every game - three overs and one unders bet.

The estimated overlays range from just under 6 to 9 points, so none of the wagers seem like sure things (as if such a creature really exists).

In Round 18, MoSSBODS performed extremely well, taking three of the four Mean Absolute Error (MAE) honours (Game Margins, Away Team Scores, and Game Totals), while Easybet produced lowest MAE for Home Team Scores.

MoSSBODS now has the season-long MAE lead for AwayTeam Scores, MoSHBODS for Home Team Scores, and the TAB bookmaker for Game Margins and Game Totals.

In the lone game on which we had a wager in Round 18, MoSSBODS went 1 and 1 against the TAB, leaving it with a season-long 70% success rate against them, and a 57% rate against Easybet.

Across all games, MoSSBODS is now 85 from 153 (56%) against the TAB, and 86 from 153 (56%) against Easybet, while MoSHBODS is 89 from 153 (58%) against the TAB, and 90 from 153 (59%) against Easybet.