2022 - Round 24 : Home Ground Advantage

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As the table at right shows, teams playing at home in the first week of the Finals tend to do fairly well, least of all for teams finishing 5th, and most of all for teams finishing 1st and 2nd.

That hasn’t stopped the bookmakers from making the 7th-placed Richmond favourites playing away to the 6th-placed Brisbane Lions, or from making the other home teams favourites by only two-and-a-half to three goals.

Looking briefly at the ultimate fate of teams based on the ladder position they occupied at the end of the home and away season, we see that teams from 4th have a generally poor record, especially in Preliminary Finals, and overall better only than that of teams finishing in 7th or 8th spot. Their record in Grand Finals is particularly poor - they’ve lost all three of those in which they’ve appeared.

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

The only contrarian head-to-head tips this week have come in the Lions v Tigers game, though there are quite a few of them, including Home Sweet Home, Consult The Ladder, ENS_Linear, and the MoS twins.

The Margin Predictors have double-digit forecast ranges in all four games this week, the largest being 16 points in the Cats v Pies game.

Altogether, ENS_Linear has the most extreme margin forecasts in three games, and the MoS twins in two each.

Currently, MoSHBODS_Marg, in third, trails MoSSBODS_Marg by just under 32 points, but the absolute distance between the pair’s forecasts is only 14 points, so MoSHBODS_Marg will not be catching MoSSBODS_Marg this week. With the exception of MoSHPlay_Marg, no other Margin Predictor is close enough to mount a serious challenge to MoSSBODS_Marg’s lead.

Amongst the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, the largest range of probability estimates is 12% points for the Cats v Pies game, just ahead of the 11% points for the Lions v Tigers game. The smallest range is just 6% points in the Dockers v Dogs game.

Altogether, MoSSBODS_Prob has the most extreme probability estimates in three games, and MoSHBODS_Prob and Bookie_OE in two each.

Such are the gaps between the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors, and such are their probability estimates, that no set of results this week will change their ordering.

WAGERS

There’s much more activity this week for Investors than I would have expected, with three head-to-head bets totalling almost 11% of the original Head-to-Head Fund, and two line bets totalling over 2% of the original Line Fund.

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

The Ready Reckoner below shows the various ways in which each of those five wagers might play out:

Geelong carries the most risk, with the difference between a best-case and worst-case outcome for it representing a 3.9c swing in the value of the Combined Portfolio. Brisbane Lions is next at 2c, then Melbourne at 0.9c.

In aggregate, the best case is a gain of just over 3c, and the worst case a loss of just under 4c.

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.