Fixture Analysis 2018: Home Ground Advantage

bh90210fan

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Are you saying we had 10 home games? Generally you will need to explain your point in greater detail.

From my perspective, outlined above, a 3rd finishing team has not been given harder match-ups based upon ladder position.
In 2012 Hawthorn got 4 games at Aurora with a clear advantage. Then they hosted the crows, Saints, lions, giants, suns and the eagles at the mcg. That’s 10 games.

On the flip side they only played the eagles, power, swans, Dogs and bombers with any disadvantage. That’s only 5 games.

Hawthorn got a dream run after finishing 3rd on the ladder the year before.
 

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In 2012 Hawthorn got 4 games at Aurora with a clear advantage. Then they hosted the crows, Saints, lions, giants, suns and the eagles at the mcg. That’s 10 games.

On the flip side they only played the eagles, power, swans, Dogs and bombers with any disadvantage. That’s only 5 games.

Hawthorn got a dream run after finishing 3rd on the ladder the year before.

I am watching the game atm, so i will reply later.

But from a quick glance.... it still reads that Hawthorn had 10 home games.

And....

Have you done the same analysis with other premierhsip teams over the past 10 years?

My point generally is that looking solely at where you play your games, without looking at who you play there, is a false ecconomy. I`d pay to play GC twice this year away from home.
 

bh90210fan

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I am watching the game atm, so i will reply later.

But from a quick glance.... it still reads that Hawthorn had 10 home games.

And....

Have you done the same analysis with other premierhsip teams over the past 10 years?

My point generally is that looking solely at where you play your games, without looking at who you play there, is a false ecconomy. I`d pay to play GC twice this year away from home.
I’m not going to do an analysis on every premiership team over the last decade. Feel free to do so yourself.

It is a publicly advertised goal of the AFL to intentionally design an unequal fixture based upon the ladder of the previous year. The winner of the GF is intended to get a harder draw than the team that finished 13th, for example.
I was just refuting your claim by showing you an example of a highly ranked team still receiving a easy fixture for the following season.
 

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I’m not going to do an analysis on every premiership team over the last decade. Feel free to do so yourself.


I was just refuting your claim by showing you an example of a highly ranked team still receiving a easy fixture for the following season.

You claimed we had one of the "cushiest draws in recent times"..... i thought you would have reviewed the recent times before making that claim, but fair enough.

I am surprised you do not bite your tonge re coushy draws after hearing/knowing that in 2012 we played the first, second, fourth and seventh best team twice in the season. (note: in 2009 we didn't make the finals, in 2010, we lost our only final, which the AFL factor in).

It seems you are basing your view entirely upon the notion of away/home advantages. That alone could not disprove any assessment of the difficulty of a draw. I suspect to that you are really just confusing the tasmania games, and home MCG against teams like Geelong. Clearly most people viewing and responding to this thread believe there is no advantage for Hawthorn playing Geelong at the MCG.

I think if you are going to make a point based upon venue you need to copy and paste the hawks fixture for that year into your post. ATM it doesn't convince.
 

bh90210fan

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You claimed we had one of the "cushiest draws in recent times"..... i thought you would have reviewed the recent times before making that claim, but fair enough.

I am surprised you do not bite your tonge re coushy draws after hearing/knowing that in 2012 we played the first, second, fourth and seventh best team twice in the season. (note: in 2009 we didn't make the finals, in 2010, we lost our only final, which the AFL factor in).

It seems you are basing your view entirely upon the notion of away/home advantages. That alone could not disprove any assessment of the difficulty of a draw. I suspect to that you are really just confusing the tasmania games, and home MCG against teams like Geelong. Clearly most people viewing and responding to this thread believe there is no advantage for Hawthorn playing Geelong at the MCG.

I think if you are going to make a point based upon venue you need to copy and paste the hawks fixture for that year into your post. ATM it doesn't convince.
You finished 3rd, so you’re going to play harder teams. Maybe you should’ve played 1 game against a easier side but that sure as hell doesn’t make up for a dream draw like this one.

https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/tg-hawthorn-hawks?year=2012

I’ve counted the Geelong games as neutral and only counted games with an obvious advantage.
 
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Clems Knee

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Interstate advantage (+10): a team hosts an opponent who travels from interstate. This includes Geelong home games against Melbourne-based sides, given the Cats' superb record there.

Local advantage (+1): a team hosts an opponent located in the same city.

Limited advantage (+5): a few specific cases: a Melbourne-based team hosting Geelong at the MCG or Docklands, Hawthorn or North Melbourne hosting a Melbourne-based team in Tasmania, and Melbourne hosting a Melbourne-based team in Darwin.

These numbers are, I think, generally accepted in AFL analytics. That is, it's commonly agreed that interstate home advantage is worth somewhere in the realm of 10 points, while the advantage of playing a local team in your own city is almost negligible. If you want to adjust them a couple of points either way, though, I won't quibble.

I think the reason some of your conclusions seem so off is that your categories are too broad, and lead to skewed results.
Games against interstate teams aren’t equal. Brisbane travelling across the nation to play in Perth is much harder than travelling to play in Sydney.
Geelong is almost a suburb of Melbourne. Their disadvantage playing in Melbourne is nowhere near half the disadvantage faced by Fremantle playing in Melbourne. They do keep a strong advantage against Melbourne teams (moreso against interstate teams).
Also, while Hawthorn and North Melbourne get a strong adavantage playing in Tasmania, Melbourne and Western Bulldogs haven’t played often enough in NT and Ballarat to get a strong advantage.

+12 long distance advantage. Qld to WA, Tas, Geelong. NSW to WA, WA to Qld, NSW, Tas, Geelong.
+10 interstate advantage. Qld to Vic, SA. NSW to Tas, SA, Geelong. SA to Qld, NSW, WA, Tas, Geelong. WA to Vic, SA. Vic to WA, Qld
+8 adjacent state advantage. Qld to NSW. NSW to Qld, Vic. Vic to SA, NSW. SA to Vic. Not much travel involved, and it fits with historically more even games. Also includes other Vic teams in Geelong, to reflect their special ground.
+5 unfamiliar ground home advantage. Novel grounds played on once a year or only recently by home team. Ballarat, NT, also Vic teams playing away in Tas.
+2 same state, different ground advantage Bris and GC, Sydney and GWS. Geelong in Melbourne.
+1 same city home crowd advantage

Plug these numbers in and there are a few markedly different results. For example, Sydney are more favoured than GWS, Port Adelaide more favoured than Adelaide and of course Geelong get the most favourable fixture of all. Gold Coast, St. Kilda, Essendon and Melbourne are the most disadvantaged.
 

Pessimistic

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Little surprised that teams hosting geelong at the g get a boost

The g is a home away from home for geelong.

Any interstate club would love to actually play all their mcg tenant games at the g rather than the south pole or etihad

South Pole? Do the eagles come from Africa?
 

Clems Knee

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It is the best travel schedule for the hawks for some time. Wheat did Collingwood do for us to get their draw?

Collingwood's draw is never that good. They may not travel as much (sometimes true) but they also never get much home ground advantage, because every Victorian team wants to play them, and puts in requests to AFL to do so.
The team that wins the fixturing every single year is Geelong. Hawthorn not far behind, thanks to Tassie and favourable away fixturing.
 

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Not complaining. if we can get our act together it’s there to exploit

But when the AFL gives a team the seven other finalists from the previous year in the first seven rounds it’s certainly not ‘always getting favoured’

If we are good this year, it’s because we’ve paid for it in the past
 

Clems Knee

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Not complaining. if we can get our act together it’s there to exploit

But when the AFL gives a team the seven other finalists from the previous year in the first seven rounds it’s certainly not ‘always getting favoured’

If we are good this year, it’s because we’ve paid for it in the past

Three aspects to the fixturing.
One is the amount of travel and home ground advantages, which this thread is about, and can be calculated.
Another is who gets to play the harder teams twice, and where. That's harder to determine because teams can slide and rise.
The third is the number of short breaks, but that's more complex to work out.
 
If only playing Geelong at the MCG gave us an advantage...

Geelong request some of their home games to be at the MCG.

That's why we've only played them twice at Kardinia Park since 1999.

No it's not. You've only played them twice at Kardinia park since 1999 because it suits the AFL for that to be the case. Their "requests" like most clubs are ignored when they don't suit the AFL and trotted out as justification when they do.
 

Final Siren

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Hawthorn in Tassie, you upgrade what would have been a +1 for the Saints to a +5...but then why wouldn’t you downgrade Port which would be a +10 at the G to a lessor disadvantage considering both teams travel?
The +5 games are certainly debatable, since there aren't enough of them to prove anything one way or the other. I've basically created a halfway-in-between category for games that aren't traditional +10 interstate games but aren't regular local games either.

I think Hawthorn's Tasmanian home functions just as well as the MCG in terms of home ground advantage, and probably more besides, given their additional edge in ground familiarity.

You knock a Suns home game in China down to a +1 but keep Melbourne home game in NT and Dogs in Ballarat as +10?
The China game is unlike the others because it's the Suns v Port each year. It's not like Hawthorn playing 4 games at a year at a ground against opponents who play there 0-1 times a year. (Also, did you see that game? The Suns kicked 4 goals. Hard to find much home advantage in that sample of one.)

The Melbourne NT games, admittedly, I think are overrated. I don't think Melbourne really has +10 against a team that actually travels less distance to get there, at which they have a poor record, and sometimes to face the same opponents. But they're lumped into the same category anyway because conceptually they're very similar to what Hawthorn and North do.
 

Final Siren

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Great analysis except one thing.

I think it's actually being too kind to Geelong. Why would our home game against Geelong at the MCG be considered +5 in our favour when the MCG is not our home ground? We both play a similar amount of games at the venue. There's no advantage for us.
+1 would be more appropriate. Geelong isn't that far from Melbourne.

Other than that, it's spot on
Geelong is always a hard one to figure out. They definitely play best at Kardinia, second best at the MCG, and third best elsewhere. So what do you call their performance at the 'G? Are they still aided by home advantage because it's better for them than an interstate ground, or are they hindered by it because they're weaker than at Kardinia?

It's somewhere around a neutral ground for them, but I'm not sure if objectively it's positive or negative.

You may well be right, though. Geelong's MCG record is also clouded by how they absolutely dominated there in the last decade. So the further you reach back for numbers, the more inflated their performance looks.
 

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In 2012 Hawthorn got 4 games at Aurora with a clear advantage. Then they hosted the crows, Saints, lions, giants, suns and the eagles at the mcg. That’s 10 games.

On the flip side they only played the eagles, power, swans, Dogs and bombers with any disadvantage. That’s only 5 games.

Hawthorn got a dream run after finishing 3rd on the ladder the year before.
Yep, in terms of home grounds, Hawthorn had an extremely favourable fixture in 2012. They hosted interstate opponents 8 times while only traveling away 3 times themselves, which is off-the-charts insane, plus had an "away" game against Geelong at the 'G.

HAWTHORN 2012
+10 GAMES (x8)
R3: Adelaide @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R5: Sydney @ York Park (TAS)
R8: Fremantle @ York Park (TAS)
R12: Brisbane Lions @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R15: Greater Western Sydney @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R20: Port Adelaide @ York Park (TAS)
R21: Gold Coast @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R23: West Coast @ M.C.G. (VIC)
+5 GAMES (x3)
R2: Geelong @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R10: North Melbourne @ York Park (TAS)
R19: Geelong @ M.C.G. (VIC)
+1 GAMES (x1)
R1: Collingwood @ M.C.G. (VIC)
-1 GAMES (x7)
R6: St Kilda @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R7: Melbourne @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R9: Richmond @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R14: Carlton @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R16: Western Bulldogs @ Docklands (VIC)
R17: Collingwood @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R18: Essendon @ Docklands (VIC)
-10 GAMES (x3)
R4: West Coast @ Subiaco (WA)
R11: Port Adelaide @ Football Park (SA)
R22: Sydney @ S.C.G. (NSW)
 
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The +5 games are certainly debatable, since there aren't enough of them to prove anything one way or the other. I've basically created a halfway-in-between category for games that aren't traditional +10 interstate games but aren't regular local games either.

I think Hawthorn's Tasmanian home functions just as well as the MCG in terms of home ground advantage, and probably more besides, given their additional edge in ground familiarity.


The China game is unlike the others because it's the Suns v Port each year. It's not like Hawthorn playing 4 games at a year at a ground against opponents who play there 0-1 times a year. (Also, did you see that game? The Suns kicked 4 goals. Hard to find much home advantage in that sample of one.)

The Melbourne NT games, admittedly, I think are overrated. I don't think Melbourne really has +10 against a team that actually travels less distance to get there, at which they have a poor record, and sometimes to face the same opponents. But they're lumped into the same category anyway because conceptually they're very similar to what Hawthorn and North do.
Yeah my point being you are already making judgements to the generic home and away concept.

So instead of an inconsistent application of them, actually evaluate the factors of each.

Hawthorn at the G
Hawthorn in Tassie

The difference is that playing in Tassie the Hawks themselves also have to travel and stay in a hotel...so travel advantage they have over Port at the G is lost, but they still retain ground familiarity and crowd advantage due to Tasmania being a 'second home'.

Melbourne play only once in Darwin, and again play Adelaide...it is the same situation as Suns v Port in china.

There is no travel advantage, no ground familiarity advantage and no crowd advantage...but you give it a +10 just because?

The Dees aren't playing 4 games a year in Darwin.

Travel
Ground familiarity
Crowd dominance

You can assess each of these for each game and create a more accurate model of advantage.
 

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Yeah my point being you are already making judgements to the generic home and away concept.

So instead of an inconsistent application of them, actually evaluate the factors of each.

Hawthorn at the G
Hawthorn in Tassie

The difference is that playing in Tassie the Hawks themselves also have to travel and stay in a hotel...so travel advantage they have over Port at the G is lost, but they still retain ground familiarity and crowd advantage due to Tasmania being a 'second home'.

Melbourne play only once in Darwin, and again play Adelaide...it is the same situation as Suns v Port in china.

There is no travel advantage, no ground familiarity advantage and no crowd advantage...but you give it a +10 just because?

The Dees aren't playing 4 games a year in Darwin.

Travel
Ground familiarity
Crowd dominance

You can assess each of these for each game and create a more accurate model of advantage.
It's a fair criticism, but you're walking into the weeds when you do that. You wind up doing something like The Age:

Road trips: 2 points per long trip (eg. Victoria-WA, Victoria-Queensland, Victoria-NT, WA-anywhere, Queensland-WA, Queensland-Victoria, Queensland-SA, etc). 1 point for shorter trips

Home state team versus interstate team: 3 points for 10+ games, 4 points for 8-9 games, 5 points for 6-7 games, 6 points for 4-5 games, 7 points for 1-3 games​

All these numbers are made up. They might be right, but there's no empirical evidence for them. Even the points are imaginary and don't correspond to anything in the real world. So it's not a data-driven analysis so much as punditry.

(Also, pet hate: it's asymmetrical! Almost a quarter of Collingwood's "fixture points" come from having two 6-day breaks, but Collingwood's opponents get no corresponding adjustment. So apparently 6-day breaks make it a lot harder for one team to win but no easier for their opponents.)

But we do know for sure that interstate home advantage really is worth about 10 points, local advantage is about 1 point, and other games somewhere in between.
 

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Yep, in terms of home grounds, Hawthorn had an extremely favourable fixture in 2012. They hosted interstate opponents 8 times while only traveling away 3 times themselves, which is off-the-charts insane, plus had an "away" game against Geelong at the 'G.

HAWTHORN 2012
+10 GAMES (x8)
R3: Adelaide @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R5: Sydney @ York Park (TAS)
R8: Fremantle @ York Park (TAS)
R12: Brisbane Lions @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R15: Greater Western Sydney @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R20: Port Adelaide @ York Park (TAS)
R21: Gold Coast @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R23: West Coast @ M.C.G. (VIC)
+5 GAMES (x3)
R2: Geelong @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R10: North Melbourne @ York Park (TAS)
R19: Geelong @ M.C.G. (VIC)
+1 GAMES (x1)
R1: Collingwood @ M.C.G. (VIC)
-1 GAMES (x7)
R6: St Kilda @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R7: Melbourne @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R9: Richmond @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R14: Carlton @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R16: Western Bulldogs @ Docklands (VIC)
R17: Collingwood @ M.C.G. (VIC)
R18: Essendon @ Docklands (VIC)
-10 GAMES (x3)
R4: West Coast @ Subiaco (WA)
R11: Port Adelaide @ Football Park (SA)
R22: Sydney @ S.C.G. (NSW)




In 2012, Hawks had a good travel diary. But i don't think we had an easy fixture overall.

The problem is with equating a favorable travel fixture with an easy draw.* I am not saying you have done this, but some posters have.



I also don't agree with some of your point assignations... such as Geelong at the MCG.
 
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It's a fair criticism, but you're walking into the weeds when you do that. You wind up doing something like The Age:

Road trips: 2 points per long trip (eg. Victoria-WA, Victoria-Queensland, Victoria-NT, WA-anywhere, Queensland-WA, Queensland-Victoria, Queensland-SA, etc). 1 point for shorter trips

Home state team versus interstate team: 3 points for 10+ games, 4 points for 8-9 games, 5 points for 6-7 games, 6 points for 4-5 games, 7 points for 1-3 games​

All these numbers are made up. They might be right, but there's no empirical evidence for them. Even the points are imaginary and don't correspond to anything in the real world. So it's not a data-driven analysis so much as punditry.

(Also, pet hate: it's asymmetrical! Almost a quarter of Collingwood's "fixture points" come from having two 6-day breaks, but Collingwood's opponents get no corresponding adjustment. So apparently 6-day breaks make it a lot harder for one team to win but no easier for their opponents.)

But we do know for sure that interstate home advantage really is worth about 10 points, local advantage is about 1 point, and other games somewhere in between.
The Age is more about trying to comparatively rank the fixtures from hardest to easiest, so yes not meant to quantify it to anything.

If you are trying to use historical data to quantify the fixture bias in terms of scoring shot advantage, as I mentioned there has been work in this that looks to delve into travel and venue.

Traveling when opposition doesn't is a 3 scoring shot disadvantage, if both teams travel then no advantage.

Then a venue performance based on historic performance and each ground is also been tracked to create a more detailed home ground advantage, because it is clear that not all venues are equal.
 

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Geelong is always a hard one to figure out. They definitely play best at Kardinia, second best at the MCG, and third best elsewhere. So what do you call their performance at the 'G? Are they still aided by home advantage because it's better for them than an interstate ground, or are they hindered by it because they're weaker than at Kardinia?

It's somewhere around a neutral ground for them, but I'm not sure if objectively it's positive or negative.

You may well be right, though. Geelong's MCG record is also clouded by how they absolutely dominated there in the last decade. So the further you reach back for numbers, the more inflated their performance looks.
Yeah I think it's certainly more of a neutral ground when say Essendon and Geelong play each other there because they both play a similar amount of games at the MCG and another ground (KP and Etihad). I wouldn't them having a home ground advantage over us at the MCG at all.

Just like I don't consider Collingwood/Richmond/Hawthorn/Melbourne having home ground advantage over Essendon at the MCG, I don't see them having it against Geelong either because they play enough games there.
 

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The Age is more about trying to comparatively rank the fixtures from hardest to easiest, so yes not meant to quantify it to anything.

If you are trying to use historical data to quantify the fixture bias in terms of scoring shot advantage, as I mentioned there has been work in this that looks to delve into travel and venue.

Traveling when opposition doesn't is a 3 scoring shot disadvantage, if both teams travel then no advantage.

Then a venue performance based on historic performance and each ground is also been tracked to create a more detailed home ground advantage, because it is clear that not all venues are equal.
Which research are you referring to here?
 
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I think the reason some of your conclusions seem so off is that your categories are too broad, and lead to skewed results.
Games against interstate teams aren’t equal. Brisbane travelling across the nation to play in Perth is much harder than travelling to play in Sydney.
Geelong is almost a suburb of Melbourne. Their disadvantage playing in Melbourne is nowhere near half the disadvantage faced by Fremantle playing in Melbourne. They do keep a strong advantage against Melbourne teams (moreso against interstate teams).
Also, while Hawthorn and North Melbourne get a strong adavantage playing in Tasmania, Melbourne and Western Bulldogs haven’t played often enough in NT and Ballarat to get a strong advantage.

+12 long distance advantage. Qld to WA, Tas, Geelong. NSW to WA, WA to Qld, NSW, Tas, Geelong.
+10 interstate advantage. Qld to Vic, SA. NSW to Tas, SA, Geelong. SA to Qld, NSW, WA, Tas, Geelong. WA to Vic, SA. Vic to WA, Qld
+8 adjacent state advantage. Qld to NSW. NSW to Qld, Vic. Vic to SA, NSW. SA to Vic. Not much travel involved, and it fits with historically more even games. Also includes other Vic teams in Geelong, to reflect their special ground.
+5 unfamiliar ground home advantage. Novel grounds played on once a year or only recently by home team. Ballarat, NT, also Vic teams playing away in Tas.
+2 same state, different ground advantage Bris and GC, Sydney and GWS. Geelong in Melbourne.
+1 same city home crowd advantage

Plug these numbers in and there are a few markedly different results. For example, Sydney are more favoured than GWS, Port Adelaide more favoured than Adelaide and of course Geelong get the most favourable fixture of all. Gold Coast, St. Kilda, Essendon and Melbourne are the most disadvantaged.
I like the spread better but MCG/Etihad should join the +2 group. Playing at Etihad is as much disadvantage as playing at Geelong for an MCG team and visa versa. Same city but the ground is different
 
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