The final week of the Finals sees Geelong, the team from 1st on the ladder, meet Sydney from 3rd, a situation that has occurred five times previously since 2000, as you can see from the table at right.

Those contests have ended favourably for the Minor Premiers on three of those five occasions.

Across all Grand Finals during this period, however, teams in 3rd have a superior record, albeit from fewer appearances, and join teams from 2nd and teams from 7th as the only set of teams with a better than 50% win rate in Grand Finals.

Looking briefly back at last week, the two tables below provide updated statistics about the Week 3 and the all-week performance of teams from each ladder position.

Those Week 3 results further enhanced the Preliminary Finals records of teams from 1st and 3rd, and worsened those of teams from 4th and 6th. Remarkably, teams from 4th are now 3 and 16 in Preliminary Finals.

On then to this weeks’ forecasts.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

Somewhat surprisingly, the MoS twins have landed on opposite sides this week, largely because of their differing opinions about how favourable or unfavourable the MCG is to the two teams.

MoSSBODS has it as a net negative for the Cats, and sufficiently so as to overcome their underlying superiority, It has the Swans winning by one-tenth of a point.

Alteratively, MoSHBODS has the MCG as a net benefit for the Cats, enhancing their underlying superiority, and has the Cats winning by 20 points.

So it is that we find MoSSBODS’ is the only contrarian head-to-head tip.

We also find the MoS twins as, between them, representing the extremes of the Margin Predictor forecasts, with MoSHBODS_Marg’s forecast margin 7 points higher than any other Predictor’s, and MoSSBODS_Marg’s forecast margin 9 points lower than any other Predictor’s.

MoSHBODS_Marg currently sits in third on the Leaderboard and trails MoSSBODS_Marg in first by about 38 points. At best, MoSHBODS_Marg will shave 20 points off that gap this weekend, and so cannot top the Leaderboard.

The MoS twins are also range-defining for the home teams’ chances amongst the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, with MoSHBODS_Prob’s probability estimate 9% points higher than any other Predictor’s, and MoSSBODS_Prob’s probability estimate 11% points lower than any other Predictor’s.

Such are the gaps between them, and such are their probability estimates, that no set of results this week will move MoSHBODS_Prob above MoSSBODS_Prob, which means that MoSSBODS_Prob will finish atop the Leaderboard. MoSHPlay_Prob could, however, move past MoSHBODS_Prob into 2nd if its estimate of the Cats’ chances is lower than MoSHBODS_Prob’s, and the Swans win.

WAGERS

Such is the disparity between the MoS twins’ opinions that Investors face, for the first time this season, head-to-head and line bets on different teams.

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

What that means, in terms of risk and reward, is as shown below:

• Geelong wins by 12 points or more: 3.6% x 0.55 x 30% - 1.2% x 65% = -0.2c

• Geelong wins by 1 to 11 points: 3.6% x 0.55 x 30% + 1.2% x 0.9 x 65% = +1.3c

• Geelong loses: -3.6% x 30% + 1.2% x 0.9 x 65% = -0.4c

Investors therefore have a 10-point window within which the only hope of profit lies. Either side of that window, a small loss awaits.

The Combined Portfolio will, as a consequence, end the season up by just over 43c or up by about 41.5c, which will be, by far the largest single-year profit ever recorded for the Portfolio, eclipsing the 32c profit of 2017. It will also be the 7th successive year in which the Line Fund has, independently, turned a profit, and the 4th successive year that the Head-to-Head Fund has done likewise.

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.