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Irrelevant Finals Statistics

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happy_eagle

happy_eagle

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For those that don't know, we are playing a Prelim final this week......

At this time of year, the media usually tries to come up with interesting statistics to try and predict what will happen.
One that gets bought out a lot in recent years, is whether or not a blowout prelim is good for a side going into a grand final. Stats are kinda interesting


2014 Prelims
Sydney win by 71
Hawthorn with by 3
Hawthorn win GF

2013
Fremantle win by 25
Hawthorn win by 5
Hawthorn win GF

2012
Sydney win by 26
Hawthorn win by 5
Sydney win GF

2011
Geelong win by 48
Collingwood win by 3 (over Hawthorn)
Geelong win GF

2007
Port Adelaide win by 87
Geelong win by 5
Geelong win GF

2006
Sydney win by 35
West Coast win by 10
West Coast win GF





If you can take anything out of that, its that Hawthorn tend to have very close Prelim Finals
Post your own irrelevant stats that mean nothing
 

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It has been ten years since a premiership team included a player who won a premiership with the team he was opposing in the Grand Final*. (being Jason Ball, Sydney, 2005).
If WC defeats Hawthorn in the grand final, Xavier Ellis will be the next player to have achieved this feat.

* may require a Fact Check.
 
wing it said:
Saw this thread, thought Bruce MacAvaney started it.
Click to expand...
You just get the feeling don't you...............

Well, couldn't quite
 
MV1oeeL.png
 

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I have quite a few stats that might be deemed irrelevant just because it's finals, and anything can happen... but said stats do form a trend, and more often than not the trends are followed.

*Since the current finals system was implemented (started being used in 2000), no team has gotten to the GF whilst finishing any lower than 4th. This trend indicates two things: teams tend to finish on the ladder where about they belong, and winning 3 straight elimination finals is a difficult task for a team that wasn't good enough to be in the top 4.
*Since the current finals system was implemented, 27 out of 30 QF winners have gone on to win the PF. This trend indicates that the week off and HGA offered by winning the QF are huge.
*In all iterations of the final 8 (since 94), the lowest position a team has been and gotten into the grand final has been sixth (Carlton in 99). It should be noted that they, and Adelaide who won the premiership from 5th in 98, were playing at a time when they were able to lose a final in their first week - which they did - and still stay in the hunt. This trend indicates that it's very hard to even make the GF if you don't have the advantages of a double chance, or home ground advantage.
*A team hasn't won 3 straight elimination finals in order to make the GF since Melbourne in '88. It should be noted that they were fifth out of fourteen teams (as opposed to eighth out of eighteen teams), though this was also the lowest finalist position at the time. This trend indicates that it's very difficult to continuously win elimination finals.
*Squiggle predictions:
- at 72.5% accuracy, Squiggle predicts WC 101, North 74 (a 4 goal margin like that indicates a pretty fair degree of confidence, especially considering that North got 'artificially' inflated on Sunday as Squiggle overestimated an injury hit Sydney)
- the Flagpole predictor, at 65% accuracy also significantly predicts WC
- home finalists have won 78.1% of finals since 95, which of course is a tip for WC.
The Squiggle trends indicate that H+A form tends to, to a strong degree, carry over into the finals.

Of course, these mean very little on the day compared to the team's performance, which is why they could be called irrelevant. Still, as someone who will be impatiently waiting til Saturday to hopefully see destiny unfold, they give me some piece of mind. As a quick summary, these are the bits of history North would have to make to beat us on Saturday:

1. Be the first team under this finals system to make the GF from outside the 4 (current odds: 0%).
2. Be only the fourth team to have not won a QF to then win a PF (current odds: 10%).
3. Be the first team to make the GF from 8th, ever. (current odds: 0%).
4. Be the first team since Melb in '88 to win 3 straight elimination finals to make the GF (26 seasons have passed since it happened, so we might call it 1/27, or 3.7%).
5. Buck the Squiggle trend (current odds: 27.5%)
6. Buck the Flagpole trend (current odds: 35%)
7. Buck the HGA trend (current odds: 21.9%)
 
-North is the only side Simpson has never beaten
-Under the current finals system , no
team has won the premiership after missing the finals in the previous two seasons. Geelong 2007 are the only team to have done this after missing the finals
the previous year (they did make the finals in 2005 though ).
 
Oh, here's another interesting one.

So I just did a look at differentials between final H+A ladder positions, and post-finals ladder positions (ie. premier = 1, runner up = 2 and so on). From 2000 to 2014, the biggest differential had been +/- 2; basically, if an away team won its EF, it always lost its SF.

However, North has already guaranteed it'll buck this trend this year, as the lowest it can finish is 4th (for a differential of +4). So what does this trend, and break in trend, indicate?

Well, two schools of thought. One is that if we adjusted the differential tolerance to +/- 4, it'd still hold true to this year while adjusting it as little as possible. In such a case, it would indicate North would lose on Saturday. Alternatively, you could view it as North already breaking a previous expectation, and thus capable of breaking other trends.

I think it's hard to apply hard science here, but I believe if a hypothesis or theory is to be altered, you are supposed to do it by the bare minimum (ie. if one aspect of relativity were discovered to be slightly out, you'd adjust that part of the theory, not throw it all away). In such a case, it's another stat that would point to North losing on the weekend, based on every year before this one (shifting it to +/- 4 also allows for the Adelaide and Carlton runs in 98 and 99, so is also reasonable on that front).

Actually... yeah, if you extend +/- 4 to the start of final 8 systems in 94, in all versions of the final 8 the differential has held to +/- 4.
 
JaxsonB said:
Oh, here's another interesting one.

So I just did a look at differentials between final H+A ladder positions, and post-finals ladder positions (ie. premier = 1, runner up = 2 and so on). From 2000 to 2014, the biggest differential had been +/- 2; basically, if an away team won its EF, it always lost its SF.

However, North has already guaranteed it'll buck this trend this year, as the lowest it can finish is 4th (for a differential of +4). So what does this trend, and break in trend, indicate?

Well, two schools of thought. One is that if we adjusted the differential tolerance to +/- 4, it'd still hold true to this year while adjusting it as little as possible. In such a case, it would indicate North would lose on Saturday. Alternatively, you could view it as North already breaking a previous expectation, and thus capable of breaking other trends.

I think it's hard to apply hard science here, but I believe if a hypothesis or theory is to be altered, you are supposed to do it by the bare minimum (ie. if one aspect of relativity were discovered to be slightly out, you'd adjust that part of the theory, not throw it all away). In such a case, it's another stat that would point to North losing on the weekend, based on every year before this one (shifting it to +/- 4 also allows for the Adelaide and Carlton runs in 98 and 99, so is also reasonable on that front).

Actually... yeah, if you extend +/- 4 to the start of final 8 systems in 94, in all versions of the final 8 the differential has held to +/- 4.
Click to expand...
You lost me at differentials
 

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Dugg said:
You lost me at differentials
Click to expand...
Lost interest or understanding? :-P

If it's the former, apologies. I've been looking at stats when I've gotten nervous about games. If I can find stats the support us, it helps calm me down - fortunately, we've been in a pretty decent position for just about all of the second half of the season, so I've found plenty of reassurance. ^^

If it's the latter: ladder placement differentials. Basically, if, say, Freo finishes as minor premier (first), but then gets knocked out in week 3 (PF), they'll finish 3rd overall. That makes their differential 1 minus 3, or -2. Similarly, if North finishes the Home and Away season in eighth, but also gets knocked out in week 3, they'll finish fourth, for a differential of 8 minus 4, or +4.
 

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