This week’s fare can be neatly described using ladder positions and expected margins as follows:

• One game where the teams are separated by one ladder positions and where the line is 3.5

• One game where the teams are separated by three ladder positions and where the line is 58.5

• Three games where the teams are separated by between five and seven ladder positions and where the lines range from 3.5 to 24.5

(Note that I’m using a competition ladder that uses match ratio to adjust for byes)

On average, the opposing teams are separated by 4.7 ladder spots this week, and the correlation between expected bookmaker margin and ladder position difference is +0.66.

The overall average bookmaker expected margin is 18.5\7 points per game, which is up by almost 6 points on the Round 14 average, but down by about 2 points on the all-time average for Round 15s. It leaves the all-Season average at just under 18 points per game.

To the tips …

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

This week’s underdog support comes from Home Sweet Home in one game, Consult The Ladder in two games, and the RSMP, MoS twins, and ENS_Linear in one game.

Amongst the Margin Predictors we’ve double-digit forecast ranges in two of the six games, including 20 points in the Sydney v West Coast game, and 14 points in the St Kilda v Brisbane Lions game.

Bookie_9 has Extreme Predictor status in five games.

Amongst the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors there is only one game with a double-digit percentage point range: St Kilda v Brisbane Lions (14% points).

Bookie_LPSO has Extreme Predictor status in four games and Bookie_OE in three.

WAGERS

This week, there is just the one line bet on Brisbane Lions. The options were -2.5 at $2.00 and -0.5 at $1.90, and I opted for the latter.

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

A Lions’ win or draw will add about 0.5c to the Combined Portfolio and a loss will subtract about the same amount.

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.