Only two games this week have expected margins of more than 19 points, and three are in single digits, which means that the average expected margin for the round at 16.6 points per game is the lowest it's been for a single round since Round 13 and the sixth-lowest it's been all season.

That 16.6 points average is a whopping 6 points per game lower than the average for the same round last season, and has dragged the 2018 all-season average back below 20 points per game (and the median back to 17 points).

We might expect then that this will be a challenging round in which to tip winners.

Let's see what the MoS forecasters think.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

There's slightly more dissension than has been the norm in recent weeks amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters, with seven of the 10 choosing an underdog in at least one of the contests, and two Tipsters tipping underdogs in three contests.

The highest level of disagreement has come in the first game of the round, where Consult The Ladder, the RSMP twins, and C_Marg have all opted for a Swans upset. There are, also, three dissenters in the Adelaide v Melbourne game, where Consult The Ladder and the MoS twins think the Dees will prevail.

Overall, Home Sweet Home dissents in three games, all of them games where there are no other dissenters, and so it has the largest Disagreement Index of 46%.

There are generally modest levels of disagreement across the Margin Predictors, though C_Marg (6.8), MoSSBODS_Marg (5.7) and MoSHBODS_Prob (4.9) have all produced relatively high mean absolute deviations (MADs). C_Marg is the Extreme Predictor in five of the contests.

Looking across the matches, three have MADs of 4.5 points per Predictor or more, the highest coming in the Crows v Dees game where the MAD is 5.6 points and the forecasts span a 26 point range, from a low of an 18 point loss for Adelaide forecast by MoSHBODS_Marg, to a high of an 8 point victory forecast by Bookie_9.

In comparison to the current leader, Bookie_Hcap, a best set of results for MoSSBODS_Marg would see it move from about 70 points behind to about 12 points behind, while a best set of results for MoSHBODS_Marg would see it move from about 177 to about 127 points behind.

The mean expected margin across the nine games and all Margin Predictors is 16.5 points per game, which is about the same as the TAB Bookmaker's average.

Turning lastly to the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, we find two very large MADs in the Adelaide v Melbourne (8.2% points per Predictor) and North Melbourne v West Coast (7.1% points per Predictor) games. One or other of the MoS twins are implicated in both these atypically large MADs. 

C_Prob, however, has the round's largest MAD of 6.7% points per game, ahead of the MoS twins' MADs of around 5% points per game.

WAGERS

We've just three wagers from MoSHBODS in the head-to-head markets this week (including one of a hair-raising size on Melbourne) and four from MoSSBODS in the line markets, mostly in the 1 to 2% range.

The Ready Reckoner for the seven wagers appears below.

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

The 6.1% wager on the Dees in their clash with the Crows means that profitability is mostly about that game this week, the swing there an eye-watering 5.5%, which is more than 4% greater than the swing in any other game.

In total, 5% of the original Combined Portfolio is at risk and the maximum upside is 5.3%. 

To finish, here are MoSHBODS' and MoSSBODS' opinions about likely team scoring.

Commentary about these forecasts will come in the week's Overs/Unders blog.