Certified Legendary Thread Race for the flag, in squiggly lines

[Final Siren]

Why does the squiggle hate St Kilda? I thought despite playing like a bottom 4 team away from home we were clearly the best side out of the 8 this year (as the 2 win buffer would suggest). If it is scoring related then why is Collingwood with an almost identical but worse points for and %age clearly ahead of us?

That's a 2-win buffer with a poor percentage off the back of a bottom-6 fixture. The Saints beat popular expectations, so should be happy with their year, but they're not "clearly the best side out of the 8." They were about as good as Melbourne, Collingwood, and Port Adelaide: great when it's their day, not so great otherwise.

There's no algorithmic fanciness here; it's simply that St. Kilda's totality of results aren't better than Port's or Collingwood's.

That said, the only reason Collingwood is ahead of St Kilda at the moment is that their last 2 weeks have been very good.

 

[sverik25]

Don't know about not performing above expectations. I doubt anyone would have tipped us for 12 wins pre season.

The squiggle also punishes teams badly who are thrashed. We did suffer a few thrashings, especially on the road.

 

[JohnZ]

You actually went to our board and read through that? You know that kind of justified it?

You think I spend time reading on your board? My hawks mate sent me a couple of screenshots showing how delusional you lot are

 

[TassieSaint]

That's a 2-win buffer with a poor percentage off the back of a bottom-6 fixture. The Saints beat popular expectations, so should be happy with their year, but they're not "clearly the best side out of the 8." They were about as good as Melbourne, Collingwood, and Port Adelaide: great when it's their day, not so great otherwise.

There's no algorithmic fanciness here; it's simply that St. Kilda's totality of results aren't better than Port's or Collingwood's.

That said, the only reason Collingwood is ahead of St Kilda at the moment is that their last 2 weeks have been very good.

Melbourne had a bottom 6 fixture too and we beat them twice. Collingwood finished 3 wins below us, that is a big gap, and we beat them. Port didn't beat a single side in the 8 and beat us in round 1 when we were worse. I don't think it's unfair at all to suggest we were the best side outside the 8 and we outperformed those 3 this year. I'm just surprised that's not reflected at all in the squiggle.

 

[DrEvil_]

Melbourne had a bottom 6 fixture too and we beat them twice. Collingwood finished 3 wins below us, that is a big gap, and we beat them. Port didn't beat a single side in the 8 and beat us in round 1 when we were worse. I don't think it's unfair at all to suggest we were the best side outside the 8 and we outperformed those 3 this year. I'm just surprised that's not reflected at all in the squiggle.

Squiggle is right, you are wrong. Just face it.

 

[The Punter]

St kilda's good days happened against the team's it should have beaten, so the squiggle penalises them. Melbourne beat hawthorn but lost to Essendon and Carlton - clearly the Dees closer to a premiership.


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[The Swans Blog]

Lol at the whingeing: 'wa wa wa, our attack is actually even better but we played in cyclones/tsunamis/Armageddon earlier on'. Get over it. The Swans have clearly pulled out in front of the peloton here - they have emerged as clearly the best team among this evenly-matched top 6.

Averages for/against:

Swans: 101/67
Crows: 113/82
Cats: 102/71
Hawks: 91/82

Differentials:
Swans: 34
Crows: 31
Cats: 31
Hawks: 9

Squiggles?
Swans: 215 (1st)
Crows: 209 (2nd)
Cats: 197 (4th)
Hawks: 192 (5th)

AA Top 40:
Swans: 5
Crows: 6
Cats: 3
Hawks: 3

Blah blah blah, whatever.

Have to go back to 2009 to find a stingier defence.

 

[momentbymoment]

But this "acid test" has already occurred. Hawthorn are the greatest team of the AFL era.

Impossible to know really unless they get a chance to play a GF away from their home ground ... Until then it's just a *peat.

 

[TheFourPillars]

Impossible to know really unless they get a chance to play a GF away from their home ground ... Until then it's just a *peat.

We'll hang around till 2035 or so just for you

 

[momentbymoment]

We'll hang around till 2035 or so just for you

A traveling GF is a wonderful thing. A national competition deserves that I would think.

 

[TheFourPillars]

A traveling GF is a wonderful thing. A national competition deserves that I would think.

Listen mate the history books don't give a rats about home ground advantage. Get over it. Its at the MCG till its changed if and when that happens

 

[caitsith01]

A traveling GF is a wonderful thing. A national competition deserves that I would think.

Build a decent AFL grade stadium that is (a) longer than 25 metres and (b) not 200kms out of Sydney proper and (c) not covered in grass salvaged from a recently bankrupted mini-golf tournament and you have a deal.

Adelaide now has a final-worthy ground, and Perth will soon. Sydney needs to get its s**t together. Queensland is not likely to be relevant in the next 1000 years.

 

[DrEvil_]

Impossible to know really unless they get a chance to play a GF away from their home ground ... Until then it's just a *peat.

We'll hang around till 2035 or so just for you

A traveling GF is a wonderful thing. A national competition deserves that I would think.

Listen mate the history books don't give a rats about home ground advantage. Get over it. Its at the MCG till its changed if and when that happens

Build a decent AFL grade stadium that is (a) longer than 25 metres and (b) not 200kms out of Sydney proper and (c) not covered in grass salvaged from a recently bankrupted mini-golf tournament and you have a deal.

Adelaide now has a final-worthy ground, and Perth will soon. Sydney needs to get its s**t together. Queensland is not likely to be relevant in the next 1000 years.

Get the f*** out of this thread too. FFS can you arse sore Swans go sook about the MCG in numerous other threads instead of stinking up the best thread on BF?

 

[The Swans Blog]

Build a decent AFL grade stadium that is (a) longer than 25 metres and (b) not 200kms out of Sydney proper and (c) not covered in grass salvaged from a recently bankrupted mini-golf tournament and you have a deal.

Adelaide now has a final-worthy ground, and Perth will soon. Sydney needs to get its s**t together. Queensland is not likely to be relevant in the next 1000 years.

Have you ever been to the SCG? Such a flog comment without a clue.

Listen mate the history books don't give a rats about home ground advantage. Get over it. Its at the MCG till its changed if and when that happens

You mean like Waverly?

 

[The Swans Blog]

Get the f*** out of this thread too. FFS can you arse sore Swans go sook about the MCG in numerous other threads instead of stinking up the best thread on BF?

Final Siren has already proven that the ground makes no difference on grand final day.

 

[DrEvil_]

Final Siren has already proven that the ground makes no difference on grand final day.

And that's the end of that, amen. Go sook elsewhere.

 

[The Swans Blog]

And that's the end of that, amen. Go sook elsewhere.

Pretty sure the salty tears the last 2 days have been from Hawks supporters. I don't recall any supporter from the other top 4/6 teams saying they don't want to face Hawthorn, rather face them and cream them and be done with it.

 

[iluvparis]

Final Siren has already proven that the ground makes no difference on grand final day.

Actually he says their isn't enough evidence to prove it does make a difference.

 

[DrEvil_]

Pretty sure the salty tears the last 2 days have been from Hawks supporters. I don't recall any supporter from the other top 4/6 teams saying they don't want to face Hawthorn, rather face them and cream them and be done with it.

Honestly must you turn this thread into a s**t fight at every single opportunity? I don't even see how that's in anyway related to my post. I'll be more than happy to engage you in some s**t slinging elsewhere but can we keep this thread about the squiggle?

 

[The Swans Blog]

Honestly must you turn this thread into a s**t fight at every single opportunity? I don't even see how that's in anyway related to my post. I'll be more than happy to engage you in some s**t slinging elsewhere but can we keep this thread about the squiggle?

I don't know, if you've come in here and started throwing turds around, expect a few to stick. Don't troll or bait and expect to get away scot free.

 

[SuperSub17]

Looks to me like a few people need a thread ban.

 

[Final Siren]

End of Home & Away season 2016

Animated!

That was a bad game to lose, Adelaide. Very bad.

The shafting Adelaide received this week was really noteworthy in its breadth, depth, and thoroughness, as I'll get to in more detail later. But first: Sydney! They look all right. Winning by 113 points in a game where you hold the opposition to two goals at three-quarter time is impressive, even if it is with the aid of interstate home advantage, and against a team THAT COULDN'T DISAPPOINT ME MORE IF IT WERE MY OWN SON. Go to your room, Richmond. You disgust me.

The Swans have spent the past month climbing the vertical axis by beefing up their scoring. They are still a lot more defensive than the typical premier. But not more than the typical Sydney premier.

Geelong and GWS did what they needed to do to lock down a top 4 spot. So did Hawthorn, although far more shakily.

Now let's talk about the Hawks. Last year, they lost 4 games in the first 8 rounds by an average of 6 points. As such, they could only finish 3rd in the home & away season despite being by far the most impressive team. That was because at the same time, Ross Lyon had made a secret bargain with Ocxthn'GGia the Demon Goat-God of Close Games, in which he agreed to hand over Zac Dawson's virgin soul in exchange for at least half a dozen fall-over-the-line wins.

So the Hawks got screwed there. They probably should have won their close ones, of course, but the fact is that whether a team wins a close game is very random. Plus, even if they had, they couldn't do anything about Fremantle winning all their close ones.

BUT LOOK HOW IT TURNS AROUND. This year, in any kind of fair universe, Hawthorn deserves to finish outside the top 4. They've won games by 3, 3, 3, 9, 5, and 1 point, while their losses are by 30, 75, 14, 29, and 25 points. That's a whole lot of wins that were one stroke of luck away from becoming a loss, and a bunch of losses that couldn't have been anything else. Across 2015-2016, Hawthorn's win-loss record on close games now actually looks normal. But last year has all the losses and this year has all the wins. It's like flipping a coin 10 times and getting five heads in a row followed by five tails. On balance, it's what you'd expect, but the distribution is crazy.

Anyway, given what happened in 2015, it's probably fair play for the Hawks to square up now. But Adelaide can feel aggrieved, because if you shake 2016 and randomize all the results a little, it's hard to get an outcome where they miss the Top 4. Yet here we are.

This is what the ladder looks like if you run the Squiggle Doors simulation with 5% luck 5,000 times. This modifies all scores by a small random amount, so that close wins can easily turn into close losses, and vice versa, while more emphatic results stay like they are. It has nothing to do with squiggle ratings, the fixture, or any kind of prediction; it's purely about adding a little random chance to each result, in order to simulate how easily things could be different:

Ladder Position | In Fair Universe | In This Universe \1st.|Sydney|Sydney\2nd.|Geelong|Geelong\3rd.|GWS|Hawthorn\4th.|Adelaide|GWS\5th.|West Coast|Adelaide\6th.|Hawthorn|West Coast\7th.|Western Bulldogs|Western Bulldogs\8th.|North Melbourne|North Melbourne\9.|St. Kilda|St. Kilda\10.|Port Adelaide|Port Adelaide\11.|Melbourne|Melbourne\12.|Collingwood|Collingwood\13.|Richmond|Richmond\14.|Carlton|Carlton\15.|Gold Coast|Gold Coast\16.|Fremantle|Fremantle\17.|Brisbane|Brisbane\18.|Essendon|Essendon

So everything is the same except Hawthorn move 3 spots.

Here is the same thing in Tower of Power style. It shows the chances of each team finishing in a particular position, given 5% luck:

North can feel fortunate, too, with those close wins earlier in the year to thank for getting them into the finals. They had practically no chance of finishing higher than 8th and a big chance of finishing lower. It could easily have been St. Kilda in there.

Anyway, we now have pretty strong teams in 5th and 6th, in Adelaide and West Coast. Finals are very commonly won by home teams, so it's a big ask for either of them to go all the way. But I do think this year offers by far the best chances of a team outside the Top 4 reaching the GF than we've seen for a while.

The official prediction, though, is this:

​

North and the Bulldogs look quite a lot weaker than the top 6, so they're expected to go out. I feel extra-confident about this because I know Elimination Finals involving North always go exactly to plan.

Flagpole! Another tightening, with Sydney zooming to the top.

​

I will try to do quick finals previews later in the week.

​

Live squiggle!​

 

[Big_Birdy]

I wonder what the predictions for the first week of finals would be I based on just since round 11? Think the Elimination Finals would look a bit more lopsided.

 

[DrEvil_]

End of Home & Away season 2016

Animated!

That was a bad game to lose, Adelaide. Very bad.

The shafting Adelaide received this week was really noteworthy in its breadth, depth, and thoroughness, as I'll get to in more detail later. But first: Sydney! They look all right. Winning by 113 points in a game where you hold the opposition to two goals at three-quarter time is impressive, even if it is with the aid of interstate home advantage, and against a team THAT COULDN'T DISAPPOINT ME MORE IF IT WERE MY OWN SON. Go to your room, Richmond. You disgust me.

The Swans have spent the past month climbing the vertical axis by beefing up their scoring. They are still a lot more defensive than the typical premier. But not more than the typical Sydney premier.

Geelong and GWS did what they needed to do to lock down a top 4 spot. So did Hawthorn, although far more shakily.

Now let's talk about the Hawks. Last year, they lost 4 games in the first 8 rounds by an average of 6 points. As such, they could only finish 3rd in the home & away season despite being by far the most impressive team. That was because at the same time, Ross Lyon had made a secret bargain with Ocxthn'GGia the Demon Goat-God of Close Games, in which he agreed to hand over Zac Dawson's virgin soul in exchange for at least half a dozen fall-over-the-line wins.

So the Hawks got screwed there. They probably should have won their close ones, of course, but the fact is that whether a team wins a close game is very random. Plus, even if they had, they couldn't do anything about Fremantle winning all their close ones.

BUT LOOK HOW IT TURNS AROUND. This year, in any kind of fair universe, Hawthorn deserves to finish outside the top 4. They've won games by 3, 3, 3, 9, 5, and 1 point, while their losses are by 30, 75, 14, 29, and 25 points. That's a whole lot of wins that were one stroke of luck away from becoming a loss, and a bunch of losses that couldn't have been anything else. Across 2015-2016, Hawthorn's win-loss record on close games now actually looks normal. But last year has all the losses and this year has all the wins. It's like flipping a coin 10 times and getting five heads in a row followed by five tails. On balance, it's what you'd expect, but the distribution is crazy.

Anyway, given what happened in 2015, it's probably fair play for the Hawks to square up now. But Adelaide can feel aggrieved, because if you shake 2016 and randomize all the results a little, it's hard to get an outcome where they miss the Top 4. Yet here we are.

This is what the ladder looks like if you run the Squiggle Doors simulation with 5% luck 5,000 times. This modifies all scores by a small random amount, so that close wins can easily turn into close losses, and vice versa, while more emphatic results stay like they are. It has nothing to do with squiggle ratings, the fixture, or any kind of prediction; it's purely about adding a little random chance to each result, in order to simulate how easily things could be different:

Ladder Position | In Fair Universe | In This Universe \1st.|Sydney|Sydney\2nd.|Geelong|Geelong\3rd.|GWS|Hawthorn\4th.|Adelaide|GWS\5th.|West Coast|Adelaide\6th.|Hawthorn|West Coast\7th.|Western Bulldogs|Western Bulldogs\8th.|North Melbourne|North Melbourne\9.|St. Kilda|St. Kilda\10.|Port Adelaide|Port Adelaide\11.|Melbourne|Melbourne\12.|Collingwood|Collingwood\13.|Richmond|Richmond\14.|Carlton|Carlton\15.|Gold Coast|Gold Coast\16.|Fremantle|Fremantle\17.|Brisbane|Brisbane\18.|Essendon|Essendon

So everything is the same except Hawthorn move 3 spots.

Here is the same thing in Tower of Power style. It shows the chances of each team finishing in a particular position, given 5% luck:

North can feel fortunate, too, with those close wins earlier in the year to thank for getting them into the finals. They had practically no chance of finishing higher than 8th and a big chance of finishing lower. It could easily have been St. Kilda in there.

Anyway, we now have pretty strong teams in 5th and 6th, in Adelaide and West Coast. Finals are very commonly won by home teams, so it's a big ask for either of them to go all the way. But I do think this year offers by far the best chances of a team outside the Top 4 reaching the GF than we've seen for a while.

The official prediction, though, is this:

​

North and the Bulldogs look quite a lot weaker than the top 6, so they're expected to go out. I feel extra-confident about this because I know Elimination Finals involving North always go exactly to plan.

Flagpole! Another tightening, with Sydney zooming to the top.

​

I will try to do quick finals previews later in the week.

​

Live squiggle!​

Brisbane continues to break new grounds on the left...

 

[iluvparis]

Are Brisbane one of the worst squiggle teams to not win the spoon?