Certified Legendary Thread Race for the flag, in squiggly lines

[KillaKanga]

Was really concerned about the run of the Power but apparently we'll win 96 - 83.

Will sleep easier now!!!! We win Sunday and this is thread of the year!!

 

[catstorm]

Why is Hawthorn starting 2014 so far to the left of their 2013 flag??

The same thing happened to Geelong we were over by Ports 2004 flag at the end of last year now miles away from it.

 

[catstorm]

Final Siren could you explain how the Tips work, it just doesn't seem to make sense that Geelong is only tipped to win by 6 when other margins are greater with less distance on the chart between the teams GC vs Bris 9 points, North vs Port 13 points, Sydney vs Adelaide 17 points just to name a few.

 

[Bender571]

Final Siren could you explain how the Tips work, it just doesn't seem to make sense that Geelong is only tipped to win by 6 when other margins are greater with less distance on the chart between the teams GC vs Bris 9 points, North vs Port 13 points, Sydney vs Adelaide 17 points just to name a few.

The tips allow for a home ground advantage

 

[mattis117]

Final Siren could you explain how the Tips work, it just doesn't seem to make sense that Geelong is only tipped to win by 6 when other margins are greater with less distance on the chart between the teams GC vs Bris 9 points, North vs Port 13 points, Sydney vs Adelaide 17 points just to name a few.

Yeah as the guy above said - if you play away from home it takes your predicted score and subtracts 6 points. It also adds 6 points to the home team's score. So if the game was played in Geelong, the margin would be 24 points greater.

 

[Alfonz]

Why is Hawthorn starting 2014 so far to the left of their 2013 flag??

I had the same question. Freo (and I assume all the teams) are also starting a long way from where we ended the GF.

 

[Royce Hafey]

I had the same question. Freo (and I assume all the teams) are also starting a long way from where we ended the GF.

Yep - same for the Tiges. In each case it appears to be a difference in the defense rather than the offense.

 

[clogged]

I think the answer to that question is in this post:

I start the year before (so Round 1, 2012, for this chart) with all teams ranked 0.50 (or 50%) in both OFF and DEF, and go from there.

One season's worth of background has turned out to be a better predictor than 0 or 2 or 3 or 10, for whatever reason.

So at the start of each season, all results from two seasons ago are wiped clean. Where Hawthorn finished 2013 was an accumulation of results from Round 1 2012 until GF day. Whereas they start 2014 with only the accumulation of results from Round 1 2013. The implication being that a side is only as good as its last season and current season results.

Final Siren correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[DemonChild]

Ah that does make sense Clogged.

 

[SJ]

It's interesting that Hawthorn barely budged all through 2013, and again in the start of this year.

 

[clogged]

It's interesting that Hawthorn barely budged all through 2013, and again in the start of this year.

Their system is very good. For the first two quarters against Essendon their play looked unbeatable.

 

[Final Siren]

I think the answer to that question is in this post:

So at the start of each season, all results from two seasons ago are wiped clean. Where Hawthorn finished 2013 was an accumulation of results from Round 1 2012 until GF day. Whereas they start 2014 with only the accumulation of results from Round 1 2013. The implication being that a side is only as good as its last season and current season results.

Final Siren correct me if I'm wrong.

Yep, this is right. It can make quite a big difference, because not only are we wiping away 2012's data, we're also recalculating the importance of each game of 2013.

For example, West Coast finished 2012 as a good team. So its starting position in the 2013 Squiggle was fairly high: in the 60s for both Offence and Defence. Beating West Coast in early 2013, therefore, was seen by the Squiggle as a pretty big deal. But for 2014, recalculating 2013 from scratch, West Coast starts off in a neutral position (50/50) and falls from there, so those wins are retrospectively less impressive.

Some of this is detailed here.

(Edit: I should also mention, the new year reset tends to pull teams back towards the middle, since they've now only had one season to move away from a starting 50/50 position, whereas at the end of last year, they'd had two full seasons to do so.)

 

[Final Siren]

It's interesting that Hawthorn barely budged all through 2013, and again in the start of this year.

That was really unusual. Teams normally slide all over the place. But Hawthorn were pinned to one spot all year.

 

[Roger Rogerson]

Has Ross Lyon seen this?

 

[Final Siren]

Has Ross Lyon seen this?

He's lived it.

 

[50metres]

How often is this updated ?

 

[Pharaoh]

Could this be the most interesting thread ever on BigFooty?

 

[The GOAT]

Could this be the most interesting thread ever on BigFooty?

No

#rompingwins

 

[Final Siren]

How often is this updated ?

Weekly, and usually on Monday or Tuesday, but I'm having issues at the moment with a code change. The dynamic verison is up to date, but not the graph I post here. Will be soon, though!

 

[Final Siren]

Round 3

The Hawks head toward familiar territory: the same area they occupied for all of 2013. And Melbourne plumb historic lows, recording the worst position of any VFL/AFL team since St. Kilda in 1956. I posted about this in a different thread yesterday, but Melbourne's badness over 2013/2014 in particular has been camouflaged by the existence of GWS, which gave them one of their two wins last year, and makes Melbourne look less like an outlier.

Fitzroy in 1996, the popular gold standard of badness, won 1 game, finishing with a percentage of 49.5%, which is about the same as Melbourne would have delivered if GWS weren't around. But Fitzroy had no camouflage: it was a very competitive year, with the highest team's percentage being 127.4%, and 13 out of 16 teams having a percentage over 92%. Almost every week, the Roys played opposition that was in the hunt for finals. And in the last four weeks of the season, knowing they were going extinct, they lost by 53, 87, 151, and 86 points, which hurt their percentage. The second-bottom team, Footscray, finished on 5.5 wins, leaving a big gap to the Roys.

In 2013, we had four standout teams in Hawthorn, Fremantle, Geelong, and Sydney, which all had a percentage over 130%. Then there was a clear gap to the other competitive teams, which ranged down to North Melbourne at 10th, then another clear gap to the also-rans, and then another clear gap to Melbourne and GWS. So while Fitzroy in 1996 were a long way behind the pack, with the best teams not too far ahead, Melbourne today are a long way behind the pack that is also a long way behind the best.

The last time a team sat around 35/43 on a squiggle was St Kilda at the same stage of 1956. The Saints won just one game in 1955, finishing with a percentage of 45.4, and like Melbourne this year, opened 1956 with three losses, two of which were pretty bad, one being to another very poor team (North Melbourne).

But if Melbourne can do a St Kilda, they'd probably take it. St Kilda improved significantly during 1956 and eventually won 4.5 games, finishing 11th out of 12 teams. They climbed the ladder every year afterward, making the finals in 1961, which was a Top 4, en route to their first and only premiership in 1966.

 

[catstorm]

Final Siren just out of curiosity using your tipping algorithm who would win out of Geelong 2011 and West Coast 1994 ( Best Attack vs best Defense).

 

[Final Siren]

Final Siren just out of curiosity using your tipping algorithm who would win out of Geelong 2011 and West Coast 1994 ( Best Attack vs best Defense).

Heh, well, just for fun:

gee = 85 * G-OFF / WC-DEF = 85 * 84.441215 / 81.829498 = 88
wc = 85 * WC-OFF / G-DEF = 85 * 63.067928 / 70.693175 = 76

Geelong 88 defeat West Coast 76

 

[d33my]

Round 3

Then there was a clear gap to the other competitive teams, which ranged down to North Melbourne at 10th, then another clear gap to the also-rans, and then another clear gap to Melbourne and GWS. So while Fitzroy in 1996 were a long way behind the pack, with the best teams not too far ahead, Melbourne today are a long way behind the pack that is also a long way behind the best.

This is the killer for me. The fact is many Melbourne fans would love just to be mid-table right now.

 

[MotlopRules]

Love this thread FS! Been great watching Port's slow trajectory upwards. Obviously still a long way to go to bridge the gap between the three best teams in the comp: Hawthorn, Freo and Geelong are all out by quite a bit compared to the rest.

 

[SJ]

Here comes Essendon.