2021 : Simulating the Final Ladder After Round 2

With almost 10% of the home-and-away season completed (truly), let’s review the latest MoSHBODS-based simulations and see what they suggest about the relative chances for the teams of playing Finals football.

(For details about the methodologies I’ve used, see this earlier blog)

LADDER FINISHES

Team Expected Wins under the Standard Methodology grew by as much as 1.2 wins this week, which was the gain enjoyed by Melbourne after their 18-point win over St Kilda. That translated into an almost 19% point increase in their Finals chances, an over 15% point increase in their Top 4 chances, and a more than 5% point increase in their chances of taking out the Minor Premiership.

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STANDARD METHODOLOGY

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hERETICAL METHODOLOGY

Other big gainers in terms of Finals chances were Collingwood (+13% points) and Fremantle (+12.5% points), while the big losers were St Kilda (-19% points), GWS (-13.5% points), and Carlton (-12% points).

The range of Expected Wins using the Standard Methodology across the 18 teams widened to about 6 wins this week. Using the Heretical Methodology it widened even more, coming in at about 9.5 wins.

Also, though not shown here, in just over 70% of the simulation replicates using the Standard Methodology, at least one of the five teams currently with a 0-2 record (Brisbane Lions, Carlton, GWS, Essendon, and North Melbourne) end up playing Finals. Using the Heretical Methodology, the figure is closer to 80%.

TEAM AND POSITION CONCENTRATION

The HHI figures for the most recent Standard Methodology simulation replicates appear below.

(For information about the HHI, also see that previous blog linked to earlier).

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Standard Methodology - 50,000 Replicates

We see considerable reductions in uncertainty for 14 of the teams this week, most notably for Melbourne, Carlton, and GWS. At the other extreme, Gold Coast and Fremantle suffered the greatest increase in uncertainty.

More starkly, all 18 ladder positions became at least somewhat more confident about the likely teams that will fill them at the end of the home-and-away season.

North Melbourne are the team with greatest certainty about the range of positions in which they’ll finish. Fremantle, West Coast, Brisbane Lions, Adelaide, and St Kilda have most uncertainty.

As usual, the mid-table positions are the ones that are associated with most uncertainty, and the top and tail positions with least uncertainty.

GAME IMPORTANCE

Finally, let’s take a look at how the Standard methodology estimates the importance of each of the remaining 182 games (see this blog for details about how these are calculated).

Here is the list of the 25 most-important games in terms of their estimated influence on the composition of the finalists.

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Fremantle are involved in 8 of the 25, and Sydney, West Coast, and Collingwood are involved in 7 each. Eight teams - Carlton, Essendon, GWS, North Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Richmond, and Western Bulldogs are currently not involved in any of the estimated Top 25.