As we enter the last week of the regular season, I feel I should do any new readers a favour and reiterate a point I’ve made over the last couple of weeks. At this stage of the season, the output of teams is very hard to predict.
Some of the lower ranked clubs will close up shop and just try and get through this weekend without any serious humiliation. While others will be full of players playing for pride and to prove themselves to the coaches and fans.
At the other end of the ladder you will have some fighting tooth and nail for percentage and a healthy win running into finals. Others will be keen to prevent injuries/suspension and may experiment with some set-ups once the result has been put to bed.
The FFSS predictor, which tries to give a probability assessment of the likelihood of each team winning their match, doesn’t factor any of these motivations into it’s predictions. I will look into possible ways this can be improved over the off-season, but for the time being, it’s probably best to use your head if you find yourself taking any of these predictions too seriously.1
The one game this week that we can be pretty sure both sides will be playing at 100% for, is the Adelaide v West Coast clash on Friday night. FFSS gives the Crows about a 3 in 4 chance of winning this one and sewing up a top-4 (possibly top-2) place.
The current market agrees with this, perhaps leaning slightly heavier towards the Crows than FFSS does. Still, at the time of writing, there’s not enough of a difference to say with any confidence that there would be value for a betting man.
All predictions are based off a combination of these team ratings and a home-ground concession.
