Certified Legendary Thread Race for the flag, in squiggly lines

[Final Siren]

Round 19, 2014​

Interactive squiggles!

 

[Hearts to hearts]

Squiggle now predicting a drawn showdown elimination final and a 1 point win to north over Essendon in an elimination final. Hawthorn by 7 points over Sydney in the GF. Interesting it still has Hawthorn smashing Geelong (given recent results anyway - it has Hawthorn by 19 in round 22 and the QF).

My heart hurts just thinking about that happening in an EF.

 

[Illinois Nazi]

Interesting to note Geelong creeping into the "Premiership Zone", while Freo are perhaps slipping out of it a little.

 

[Catsace]

Massive next three weeks, with Geelong playing Freo in Rd 20, Freo playing Hawthorn in Rd 21, and Geelong playing the Hawks in Rd 22. These will be squiggle-defining games i reckon. Port and Sydney also a big one. Lots of top-4 worthy clashes coming up late in the year.

 

[catstorm]

Interesting to note Geelong creeping into the "Premiership Zone", while Freo are perhaps slipping out of it a little.

was thinking the same thing really starting to move into that sweet spot, but Hawthorn is almost flush on it.

 

[Pessimistic]

Note how the seperation between GWS and Melbourne is almost as big as the hawthorn sydney seperation

 

[Final Siren]

Note how the seperation between GWS and Melbourne is almost as big as the hawthorn sydney seperation

Huh, yes. GWS and Melbourne have really gone in different directions this year. But they've both improved a lot. Even just looking at their percentage, it's a massive difference to be in the 70s instead of the low 50s.

All the lower teams have been doing interesting things lately. Brisbane are looking like they're executing a wide U-turn, rather than just spiralling downwards. The Bullies and Carlton have broken away from their season-long area. Carlton in particular look like a team that started off the season quite a bit worse than the squiggle expected (and so dropped fairly rapidly for the first few rounds), then consolidated, and have been significantly improved since Round 12.

 

[Final Siren]

was thinking the same thing really starting to move into that sweet spot, but Hawthorn is almost flush on it.

The thing also with those "fringe cups" is they are usually won against relatively weak opposition. That is, the premier isn't very far into the sweet spot, but neither is anyone else.

The big exceptions are Sydney's flags: Sydney 2012 won despite Hawthorn occupying a far better area, and Sydney 2005 won despite St Kilda camping out in the sweet spot.

Hawthorn are in a much better place than Geelong right now, and, significantly, they've been there all season. It's not too different to last year, when the Hawks sat in the same spot all year before sliding rightward in the finals. That consistency is very impressive.

 

[Bloods Rule!]

Love the squiggle. I'd be interested to see where Sydney stood last year - when the Top 4 were exactly the same as they are now? But, like the Hawks this year, the Swans last year had cashed a lot of petrol tickets dealing with injuries and late season injuries left us looking squiggle good (I'm guessing) but with little chance of lifting to finals intensity - we didn't and didn't make the GF for a chance to go back to back.

 

[Roobs321]

Impressed at Brisbane's defensive squiggle. What a recovery, particularly given the key injuries.

 

[Final Siren]

Love the squiggle. I'd be interested to see where Sydney stood last year - when the Top 4 were exactly the same as they are now? But, like the Hawks this year, the Swans last year had cashed a lot of petrol tickets dealing with injuries and late season injuries left us looking squiggle good (I'm guessing) but with little chance of lifting to finals intensity - we didn't and didn't make the GF for a chance to go back to back.

You can play through the 2013 squiggle here. Hawthorn were at their lowest point, having just been hammered by Richmond, Freo were in exactly the same place as now, Geelong were a bit higher, and Sydney were roughly as strong as now but more balanced than defensive.

So if you had to call it from Round 19, 2013, you would probably pick Geelong and Sydney over the ultimate Grand Finalists, although it was all quite close.

 

[Holy Foley!]

Final Siren Richmond are currently on 8 wins and the squiggle predicts the tigers to finish on 10 wins, with losses to Essendon, Adelaide and Sydney, and a win against Saint Kilda.

 

[Final Siren]

Final Siren Richmond are currently on 8 wins and the squiggle predicts the tigers to finish on 10 wins, with losses to Essendon, Adelaide and Sydney, and a win against Saint Kilda.

Discussed here, but the short explanation is that while the squiggle is tipping the Tigers in only one of those games, it thinks there's likely to be an upset in there somewhere.

 

[KissKiss]

Impressed at Brisbane's defensive squiggle. What a recovery, particularly given the key injuries.

Been a good recovery but at the same time the start of the year was much tougher in term of fixture (played roughly 7/8 top 8 teams in the first 2 months) and a new coach (game plan). It was always going to be a better finish to the year. Still pleasing to see though

 

[hcd199]

Port Adelaide/Adelaide elimination final tipped to be a 92-92 draw at present, and North/Essendon to be a one-point result. Would make for an enjoyable (if very tense) first week of finals...

 

[Final Siren]

Port Adelaide/Adelaide elimination final tipped to be a 92-92 draw at present, and North/Essendon to be a one-point result. Would make for an enjoyable (if very tense) first week of finals...

Mmm, it's actually Port Adelaide 92.46 to 92.04, then rounded off. So I guess a Port win in extra time?

 

[Hearts to hearts]

The thing also with those "fringe cups" is they are usually won against relatively weak opposition. That is, the premier isn't very far into the sweet spot, but neither is anyone else.

The big exceptions are Sydney's flags: Sydney 2012 won despite Hawthorn occupying a far better area, and Sydney 2005 won despite St Kilda camping out in the sweet spot.

Hawthorn are in a much better place than Geelong right now, and, significantly, they've been there all season. It's not too different to last year, when the Hawks sat in the same spot all year before sliding rightward in the finals. That consistency is very impressive.

Can I say again how awesome this squiggle is? It's not only a fresh way of looking at what happens over a season, it's also thoroughly engaging and informative and your (pretty constant) clarifications of everyone's questions and comments keep delivering extra angles. I don't know how long this has been going on, I'm only sorry I didn't click on it sooner - now I am hooked. You should seriously be our next star to take BF popularity and parlay it into real life fame (after First Dog On The Moon).

 

[Holy Foley!]

Discussed here, but the short explanation is that while the squiggle is tipping the Tigers in only one of those games, it thinks there's likely to be an upset in there somewhere.

Ah k. The squiggle is such a tease.

 

[Iron]

Mmm, it's actually Port Adelaide 92.46 to 92.04, then rounded off. So I guess a Port win in extra time?

My heart would explode.

 

[wallyt99]

The squiggle did give North Melbourne a 12-point "interstate" advantage that wasn't quite deserved, since in fact Geelong typically perform better than that in Melbourne. But I don't think that was really the problem with the prediction here, since North usually play Etihad better than usual, and the squiggle ignores that, too. And Geelong won pretty handily, by 32 points. It was just a flat-out wrong tip.

(Although Geelong being up by 40 "at one stage" is of no relevance. Teams often coast a little once they've got a game in the bag. The squiggle attempts to predict actual scores, not woulda/coulda/shoulda scores.)

So very broadly when the squiggle gets it wrong either:

1. The squiggle failed to consider the available data properly; or
   
2. Geelong is getting better and/or North is getting worse.

Both are plausible!

Edit: I guess also you could explain it with inherent randomness. There's no doubt that a good whack of what actually goes down in a game of football is not able to be anticipated, even with perfect information. But in this case that would be an awful lot of randomness.

You forget to consider who gets the rub of the green. Roby

 

[Catatonic Shock]

You forget to consider who gets the rub of the green. Roby

Exactly.
With the free even the Cats would have won by more.
Good observation.

 

[The Speaker]

Can I say again how awesome this squiggle is? It's not only a fresh way of looking at what happens over a season, it's also thoroughly engaging and informative and your (pretty constant) clarifications of everyone's questions and comments keep delivering extra angles. I don't know how long this has been going on, I'm only sorry I didn't click on it sooner - now I am hooked. You should seriously be our next star to take BF popularity and parlay it into real life fame (after First Dog On The Moon).

tbf Final Siren could probably claim to have a degree of 'real life fame' already.

 

[Final Siren]

Can I say again how awesome this squiggle is? It's not only a fresh way of looking at what happens over a season, it's also thoroughly engaging and informative and your (pretty constant) clarifications of everyone's questions and comments keep delivering extra angles. I don't know how long this has been going on, I'm only sorry I didn't click on it sooner - now I am hooked. You should seriously be our next star to take BF popularity and parlay it into real life fame (after First Dog On The Moon).

Thank you! I have really enjoyed doing it. This thread turned out much better than I expected.

 

[drummond2fevola]

Melbourne's head of their penis is complete

 

[MoscowHawk]

Strange that Hawks seem to be a more defensive side this year despite long absences from Gibson, Lake & Stratton and also having lost Guerra.