2019 - Round 11 : Maybe Some Blowouts

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This week sees seven of the contests with double-digit expected margins, and six with margins greater than twenty points, which has resulted in the first round of the season where the average expected margin exceeds four goals. It’s come in at 24.3 points per game.

That’s the highest of this season, and has dragged the 2019 average up to 17.8 points per game, but that’s still well below the 2018 all-season average of 20.9, and slightly below the 2017 average of 18.0.

Also, in the context of typical Round 11s, it ranks only 5th amongst the averages since 2012, so there’s no concern yet, I would suggest, that the season’s low-margin trend in definitively at an end.

Let’s see what the MoS models think.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

Reflecting the expected one-sided nature of most of the contests, underdog support this week is almost non-existent, with Home Sweet Home accounting for fully three-quarters of the entirety of underdog tips.

As such, there’ll be little movement on the Head-to-Head Tipsters’ Leaderboard this week.

Amongst the Margin Predictors there’s only one game where we see forecast home margins on either side of zero: Melbourne v Adelaide, where Bookie_9 and ENS_Linear are, narrowly, supporting the home team.

There’s also only one game where the range of forecasts exceeds 4 goals - West Coast v Western Bulldogs (29 points) - but the mean expected margin across the nine games and all Margin Predictors has come in at 24.1 points per game, which is almost double last weeks’ average, but fractionally below the TAB bookmaker’s average.

Bookie_9 has the most extreme forecasts in five of the games (this week denoted by arrows, which I hope are easier to discern), C_Marg in four, and Bookie_3 and the MoS twins in three each. No other forecaster is most extreme in more than two games (but, of course, MoSHPlay is still to speak).

Turning lastly to the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, we find the largest range in percentage point terms in the West Coast v Western Bulldogs game where the forecasts span 26% points (from 56% to 82%). Next-largest are the 15 to 20% point ranges for the North Melbourne v Richmond (16% points) and Melbourne v Adelaide (19% points) games.

Bookie_OE, C_Prob, and MoSSBODS_Prob have the round's most extreme estimates in four contests, and MoSHBODS_Prob in three.

WAGERS

We’ve three head-to-head and four line bets this week, the most significant of which being a 3.3% head-to-head wager on the Lions, and a 5.2% line wager on the Dogs.

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

That large line bet sees the Dogs carrying the week’s largest risk of just under 5% (as measured by the difference between best and worst outcomes). Across the rest of the games, North Melbourne, Collingwood, Geelong, the Brisbane Lions, and St Kilda are each carrying between 0.8% and 1.7% as you can see in the Ready Reckoner below.

In total, just under 6% of the original Combined Portfolio is at risk across six games, and the maximum upside is just over 5%.

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.