2021 : Simulating the Final Ladder After Round 3

As chance-changing rounds go, I think the latest one was amongst the most change-inducing.

Let’s take a look …

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

LADDER FINISHES

Team Expected Wins under the Standard Methodology grew by over 1 full win for four teams this week, and fell by over1 full win for four more. That translated into 14 to 23% point increases in the Finals chances for the Dogs, Swans, Eagles, and Dons, and 11 to 22% point declines for the Tigers, Saints, and Giants (the Roos also saw their Expected Wins decline by over a game, but their Finals chances, which were already small, by only about 3% points).

There were also some fairly sizeable changes in teams’ Top 4 and Minor Premiership chances under the Standard Methodology.

In general, changes were even larger under the Heretical Methodology, with Expected Wins changing by as much as 2 full wins, and Finals chances by as much as 26% points.

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STANDARD METHODOLOGY

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HERETICAL METHODOLOGY

The range of Expected Wins using the Standard Methodology across the 18 teams widened to over 7.5 wins this week. Using the Heretical Methodology it widened even more, coming in at almost 10.5 wins.

Of the five teams that started with a 0-2 record (Brisbane Lions, Carlton, GWS, Essendon, and North Melbourne), the Standard Methodology now estimates that there’s an 80% chance at least one of them will end up playing Finals.

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 final ladder position uncertainty for Sydney, Western Bulldogs, GWS, St Kilda, and Melbourne, and significant increases for Richmond, Port Adelaide, and Essendon.

We also see moderate reductions in the uncertainty associated with each ladder position, but moreso for 17th and 18th positions.

Collingwood are now the team with greatest uncertainty about the position in which they’ll finish on the ladder, North Melbourne the least 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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Collingwood are now involved in 10 of the 25, Brisbane Lions in eight, Richmond in seven, and Adelaide and Port Adelaide in 5 each. Seven teams - GWS, Gold Coast, Melbourne, North Melbourne, St Kilda, Sydney, and Western Bulldogs are currently not involved in any of the estimated Top 25.