It depends on who you beat, and how much you beat them by. Look at the forecast and you get the squiggles predicted scores. If you beat those scores, the squiggle wil rate you more highly.
Certified Legendary Thread The Squiggle is back in 2023 (and other analytics)
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KissKiss
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Watching Brisbane's improvement off a loss I started to wonder how far a team could move up the graph with out actually winning a game. And conversely how far a team could move backwards while still winning every game?
Tap Tap Tapperoo
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I think we can safely assume this will form a large part part of Goodwin's pre game rev up.
Lions_Prid3
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I remember back in 2015, Fremantle after starting the year 9-0 started regressing further and further each week in the back end of the season, despite winning most games. Squiggle did not rate them at all, even though they would eventually finish on top of the ladder.
In the end squiggle was right, they barely got over the line against an injury-riddled Swans in the qualifying final, before losing a home prelim to the Hawks.
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This is less definitive this year because squiggle has started looking at the distribution of scoring shots.
There have been a few games already where the ratio of goals to behinds was very abnormal, so teams didn't move like you'd expect from the final scores alone. For example, in Round 1 Richmond 17.19 (121) vs Carlton 15.5 (95) - the final margin was less than squiggle predicted, but the Tigers actually improved on the chart and the Blues regressed because of Richmond's overwhelming scoring shot advantage.
Similarly, Squiggle didn't think Geelong's 1-pt Round 2 loss to the Hawks was really that close because it was 18.9 to 17.16, and it likes the Bulldogs' win over Essendon this week because it was 14.20 to 12.11.
GreyCrow
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Similarly. I predicted in 2016 when North was 9-0 that they wouldn't get a home final. I don't think the Squiggle much cared for them either.
tazaa
Brownlow Medallist
That had nothing to do with squiggle.
We were hammered by injury and never got going after the bye.
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tazaa
Brownlow Medallist
Believe it or not, 17 other teams copped injuries that year too.Really, you talk of injuries I. 2016
Doesn’t make your flag any more special than 2017 or 2015. It just meant you adapted the best of all.
Also, you had a pretty ordinary formline. Seven wins against non-finallists, some of them very small - 5 points v Melbourne, 7 vs St Kilda, and only 14 against spooners Essendon. Of these seven, only the round 9 match against Carlton resembled how a top team plays against a bottom team. The other two matches were a small home win against Adelaide (in Pyke's first game) and a snoozefest against the Bulldogs. Their draw was very much in two halves - a very easy start to the year, which got much tougher very fast after round 9, and North had to play better than they were playing against bad teams to beat good teams.
tazaa
Brownlow Medallist
Its context mate.
Melbourne game was played in Hobart with a gale blowing to one end. It was one of our better wins since we fought back well in the last against the wind to pinch it.
We lost Higgins to a knee injury against St.Kilda and Ben Jacobs and Mason Wood both got injured against the Bombers. At 3 quarter time we were up by 8 goals.
Its extremely easy for opposition posters to look at final results and ladder positions and say, yeah they over achieved.
Considering North are perennial slow-starters, the round 1 Adelaide win was huge for confidence and remains our only round 1 win in the last 10 years. Bulldogs games was a top of the ladder clash that drew a record crowd. No one cares how we won as long as we did.
As previously said we lost Taylor Garner to a hamstring in round 3 who never returned, lost Shaun Higgins in Round 7 against St.Kilda for 3 months who never got going again once he was fit, Mason Wood got knocked out against Essendon in round 8 and Ben Jacobs who was considered vital to our midfields mix due to the lack of spread offered by Ziebell, Cunnington and Swallow. He tagged the best player for the first 2 months and injured his foot, never playing again until round 1 this year.
The following week against Sydney we lost Goldstein to leg injury and this ended his AA status as one of the games best ruckman. Hasnt been the same since. We lost Sam Wright to a season ending ankle injury in round 11, of which he still hasnt returned from.
And this is where our draw got difficult. We copped Geelong, Hawthorn and Adelaide and West Coast away consecutively.
Dangerfield got ahold of us and it showed how much we missed Jacobs.
We lost Swallow to concussion, Cunnington to a calf injury and Waite hurt his hip all in game against the Cats. Basically our season was over.
When McDonald pinged his hammy chasing down Cyril the following week we were well and truly ****ed with so many important players out and our coaching staff did nothing to alter the course of outcome we were heading to. Its what annoyed us most in that we accepted our fate and promptly retired our veterans.
I'll be honest. I was completely bearish (against the trend of our board) in 2016 and 95% was because of squiggle. I remember Freo fans being up and about coming into R1 against the Dogs and I had a sinking feeling.
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I feel like North weren't really rated by the general football public in 2016, despite being 9-0. They had only the 5th best percentage and an obviously lopsided draw. There were a lot of aggrieved North fans asking why no-one was giving them due credit.
But in general, humans do hugely overvalue close wins, while computer models usually see them as 50/50 games that could have broken either way. There's a whole mystique around "teams that win the close ones" that makes a good story but doesn't seem to be grounded in reality. Teams get a reputation for it for a while and then stop doing it and no-one mentions it any more. Last year, Richmond lost three heartbreakers in a row by a combined total of 10 points and as it turned out that didn't predict anything about their longer-term ability to perform under pressure or to win finals.
But winning close games is definitely a bad sign for future seasons, because you need to be very lucky to keep it up. Most recently, the Hawks did it in 2016 and duly dropped in 2017. And of course as discussed, Fremantle had a once-in-a-century run of close wins in 2015 and fell from minor premiers to 16th the next year.
But in general, humans do hugely overvalue close wins, while computer models usually see them as 50/50 games that could have broken either way. There's a whole mystique around "teams that win the close ones" that makes a good story but doesn't seem to be grounded in reality. Teams get a reputation for it for a while and then stop doing it and no-one mentions it any more. Last year, Richmond lost three heartbreakers in a row by a combined total of 10 points and as it turned out that didn't predict anything about their longer-term ability to perform under pressure or to win finals.
But winning close games is definitely a bad sign for future seasons, because you need to be very lucky to keep it up. Most recently, the Hawks did it in 2016 and duly dropped in 2017. And of course as discussed, Fremantle had a once-in-a-century run of close wins in 2015 and fell from minor premiers to 16th the next year.
I was the same but that was from watching the second half of 2015 and realising that I was witnessing the football equivalent of Bill Murray in groundhog day in the middle act...eg he is over it and just through the motions
I like the scoring shots distribution in general, but could see it taken as step further again, in comparing against the teams average distributions. Some clubs put themselves to have lower chances of goals (oops Port), so whether a lots of points is an anomaly would vary from team to team.
Luv_our_club
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Perhaps Hawthorn having those close wins, one after the other, was what they needed to get into the top 4.
Whereas Richmond, losing those close games, one after the other, didn't hurt their top ladder finish.
One failed in the finals, the other succeeded.
So losing a number of close games probably better than winning a number, if both teams finish equally high.
GreyCrow
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Close games are an indication that a side has a competitive spirit and continues to 'be in the game' longer rather than being blown out
The difficulty is knowing if it is a group starting to come together as a team ie going up , or a team relying on muscle memory to stay close while going down. At what stage each side is is the hard thing ie taking the example above. Richmond had finished 13th the year before and the group had started to gel again , Hawthorn a proud champion that was relying on its reputation and warriors to get them to the line
The difficulty is knowing if it is a group starting to come together as a team ie going up , or a team relying on muscle memory to stay close while going down. At what stage each side is is the hard thing ie taking the example above. Richmond had finished 13th the year before and the group had started to gel again , Hawthorn a proud champion that was relying on its reputation and warriors to get them to the line
HERE COMES THE RED & BLUE SQUIGGLE!
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It's definitely a much better sign to register a close loss than an uncompetitive one.
I think humans tend to put each game into one of a small number of buckets, e.g. "Thrashed," "Close but lost," "Close win," or "Smashed them." Because that's how our brains work: by categorizing, so we can find similar events and draw on what we know about them. And a big strength of computer models is that they don't do this, but can much more finely appreciate the difference between an 80-point loss and a 60-point loss, or, on the flipside, not get too carried away with the difference between a narrow win and a narrow loss.
cryptor
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I think factoring in the scoring shots is a good move. In line with your idea of those buckets is the classic "they didn't win it, the other team lost it".
Sometimes unluckyness in front of goals is met with luckyness by the opposition. Not the greatest example I'm sure, but it's recent and I'm familiar with it, is the Geelong v Hawthorn game in round 2. Hawthorn kicked 17.16 which included 4 posters to Geelong's 18.9. "Bad kicking is bad football" and all that stuff aside, Hawthorn could have very easily lost in another close one with those posters being the difference. Intuitively it makes sense that these sorts of results be factored into things.
The squiggle is becoming self aware, it's going to turn into Skynet and take over the world soon!
Lions_Prid3
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Collingwood about to SHOOT into contention.
treefingers
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In a bad way imo. Where were they ranked before this weekend? I don't buy that all of a sudden they're making the semis (according to squiggle)
