Why have teams been so inconsistent this year?

[PerthBoy86]

Much has been said about how almost every team has seemingly been inconsistent and variable, and often unpredictable this year, from Geelong to Gold Coast, but I haven't heard many try to explain this. It seems almost every team has been capable of beating any team on a given day. Sure, it seems the comp being more equal plays a role, but performances still vary wildly. Port, Hawthorn, Essendon, Freo, GWS, Bulldogs probably stand out the most, but every team has had some really bad losses and great wins.

Is this season really that unusual in this regard? If so, what do you think is the main reason or reasons for the inconsistency and unpredictability of so many teams?

 

[Old Stuckup]

Because they’re just not that good.

 

[blitzer]

Most teams in the comp right now are within that sort of 5-10% of each other, so it doesn't take much to upset the apple cart.
The only teams that can truly be consistent are either ultra good or ultra crap teams. We don't have any ultra good teams and we only have 1 ultra crap team in Gold Coast.

The good news is that most of the teams are at least somewhat competitive. On the other hand If I was a neutral I'd love to watch two teams with 18+ wins go to head to head in a Grand Final but you aren't going to be getting that this year.

 

[Gysberts2Bate]

Melbourne are consistently s**t.

 

[PerthBoy86]

Most teams in the comp right now are within that sort of 5-10% of each other, so it doesn't take much to upset the apple cart.
The only teams that can truly be consistent are either ultra good or ultra crap teams. We don't have any ultra good teams and we only have 1 ultra crap team in Gold Coast.

The good news is that most of the teams are at least somewhat competitive. On the other hand If I was a neutral I'd love to watch two teams with 18+ wins go to head to head in a Grand Final but you aren't going to be getting that this year.

It's not just winning and losing but the nature of those wins and losses. Kangaroos thump Collingwood yet can restricted to a goal by Geelong. It would seem there's no real logic to that, other than teams almost deciding when to turn up. Freo beat Pies and Geelong yet have been smashed by some pretty lowly teams. Port have had some great wins yet get smashed easily. West Coast and Collingwood have had some pretty bad losses.

 

[iluvparis]

Match fixing

 

[Engimal v3]

Much has been said about how almost every team has seemingly been inconsistent and variable, and often unpredictable this year, from Geelong to Gold Coast, but I haven't heard many try to explain this. It seems almost every team has been capable of beating any team on a given day. Sure, it seems the comp being more equal plays a role, but performances still vary wildly. Port, Hawthorn, Essendon, Freo, GWS, Bulldogs probably stand out the most, but every team has had some really bad losses and great wins.

Is this season really that unusual in this regard? If so, what do you think is the main reason or reasons for the inconsistency and unpredictability of so many teams?

I took particular interest in this line:

It seems almost every team has been capable of beating any team on a given day.

I decided to take betting data for every game from the last 10 years (2009-2019) and see how often the betting favourite actually ended up the winner. The assumption is that the betting favourite is the team the public would expect to win, and I think that's pretty fair. After all, odds are heavily influenced by who the public is backing.



On average, the betting favourite has won 70.2% of the time. Between 2012 and 2017 was the time of least volatility. The average was exceeded every year, between +0.15% in 2013 to +7.08% in 2016.

The recent volatility that you mention is very real. In the last two seasons, (2018 and 2019), the expected winning's win % actually fell to 61.3 and 65.2% respectively. That's a drop of -8.95% and -5.02% below the average.

EDIT - Bonus round:

Despite 2016 being the best year for predicting winners and despite 2018 being the worse, they are actually flipped when it comes to finals. In 2018, 7/9 finals were predicted correctly by bookies, whereas only 3/9 were correctly predicted in 2016.

In the 2016 finals, the home team was favourite in all games, but the away team won 2/3rd of the games.

 

[Coaster2012]

Because they’re just not that good.

It's actually not that different when you look at the final standings. People who say ohhhh teams just aren't that good anymore have false memories of the past. Hawks 2015 finished 3rd when they won the flag and won just as many games as Richmond have and they are also in 3rd. They only won 1 more game in 2014. The Lions 3peat didn't even finish 1st once. Besides that crazy Bombers season in 2000, this year has been like any other year and teams are just as good as any other year with relatively the same wins and losses as any other year.


Some of the best teams have had bad patches, but they almost all correlate with injuries which tend to be higher in the modern game. Thats it.

 

[HTT]

It's actually not that different when you look at the final standings. People who say ohhhh teams just aren't that good anymore have false memories of the past. Hawks 2015 finished 3rd when they won the flag and won just as many games as Richmond have and they are also in 3rd. They only won 1 more game in 2014. The Lions 3peat didn't even finish 1st once. Besides that crazy Bombers season in 2000, this year has been like any other year and teams are just as good as any other year with relatively the same wins and losses as any other year.


Some of the best teams have had bad patches, but they almost all correlate with injuries which tend to be higher in the modern game. Thats it.

I think a lot of people are a little bit blinded by the period around the turn of the decade, in 2008, 09 and 11, the team that finished on top won 20 or more games, which is ridiculous dominance - only 5 teams have done that ever, and we had 3 in 4 years.
Usually, top of the ladder wins between 16 and 18 games. That’s what we’re getting now.

 

[Duskfire]

People wanted equality and this is it. Where most teams are capable of beating each other provided you aren’t the very very bottom.

The game has become so defensive that a lot of the time, even a clearly better performing team can only be a few goals in front at three quarter time, and all it takes is a surge to change that. Collingwood and Eagles especially are masters of that.

It’s why this final series has the potential to be so interesting. Anyone in that top 8 can beat anyone on the day.

 

[Duskfire]

I think a lot of people are a little bit blinded by the period around the turn of the decade, in 2008, 09 and 11, the team that finished on top won 20 or more games, which is ridiculous dominance - only 5 teams have done that ever, and we had 3 in 4 years.
Usually, top of the ladder wins between 16 and 18 games. That’s what we’re getting now.

Yup. I also think we had a period of long term success one after another in quick succession. Brisbane followed a couple of years later by Geelong followed by the Hawks. But if you look at the 90s, sure there were teams that did well consistently, but a lot of those years were close and anyone’s game come finals.

 

[Coaster2012]

Yup. I also think we had a period of long term success one after another in quick succession. Brisbane followed a couple of years later by Geelong followed by the Hawks. But if you look at the 90s, sure there were teams that did well consistently, but a lot of those years were close and anyone’s game come finals.

Brisbane didn't finish 1st once. They won flags sure, but they weren't dominating seasons. They won 17, 17, 14 (14 wins this year would have had them out of the top 4 and unlikely winning a flag, that year it got them 3rd). Lions 2003 wouldn't have had a look in 2019.

If anything, there are more good teams now than then since the top 4 are all great teams, and even WC in 5th can beat anyone on their day. The competition has MORE good teams, not less.

 

[footyfan1978]

As a kid went to football in 1983 and top five teams were very even. My side had gone back to back premiers. Imagine my surprise being at Arden Street v Kangaroos and lose by 111 points....then a few weeks later North top of ladder are playing third on ladder Lions and we had lost three in a row badly. Kangaroos lose by 150 points to Fitzroy. So are we 261 points worse than Fitzroy ? Round 15 we meet Fitzroy and we only won one game of previous five matches going into it. Quarter time we are nearly 4 goals down to Fitzroy. Thrashing coming ? We won by nearly 6 goals....
Second last round we play North again that are top of ladder. They beat us by 111 points only a few months back.. Quarter time they lead by around four goals. We end up beating the side we lost to by 111 points by nearly 6 goals...
North top of ladder had lost a match during seasons by 25 goals.....
At top level, mentally if you off your game, anything can happen over two hours of a match.

By the way, in 1983, Lions and North went out of finals losing in straight sets....We also lost our last two games for season.
The team we kicked 10 goals against in third quarter of third last round, went on to win the premiership. In fact we beat Hawks every time we played them that season but they won the premiership.


This season top five are just as even. Anything, can and will happen. Good luck picking premiers with four weeks of finals to come.

 

[NonPhixion]

I took particular interest in this line:


I decided to take betting data for every game from the last 10 years (2009-2019) and see how often the betting favourite actually ended up the winner. The assumption is that the betting favourite is the team the public would expect to win, and I think that's pretty fair. After all, odds are heavily influenced by who the public is backing.

View attachment 740454

On average, the betting favourite has won 70.2% of the time. Between 2012 and 2017 was the time of least volatility. The average was exceeded every year, between +0.15% in 2013 to +7.08% in 2016.

The recent volatility that you mention is very real. In the last two seasons, (2018 and 2019), the expected winning's win % actually fell to 61.3 and 65.2% respectively. That's a drop of -8.95% and -5.02% below the average.

EDIT - Bonus round:

Despite 2016 being the best year for predicting winners and despite 2018 being the worse, they are actually flipped when it comes to finals. In 2018, 7/9 finals were predicted correctly by bookies, whereas only 3/9 were correctly predicted in 2016.

In the 2016 finals, the home team was favourite in all games, but the away team won 2/3rd of the games.

this is some really good data, and im not trying to discredit it in anyway. But I would be interested in seeing these %'s based on teams that have been more heavily backed than the other. A $1.50 favourite could not be backed much at all, while a $2.50 underdog could be backed more heavily than the favourite. This data would be difficult to obtain unless you were able to sift through the Opening and Closing lines on all games.

 

[Engimal v3]

As a follow up (

this is some really good data, and im not trying to discredit it in anyway. But I would be interested in seeing these %'s based on teams that have been more heavily backed than the other. A $1.50 favourite could not be backed much at all, while a $2.50 underdog could be backed more heavily than the favourite. This data would be difficult to obtain unless you were able to sift through the Opening and Closing lines on all games.

That's very true. Could be a very interesting Pt2 to the analysis, all the data is out there.

 

[La Dispute]

There’s also no truly dominant teams in the comp, so almost every team would go into most weeks believing they can win.

The game is such a random mish-mash of occurrences, little things like a few missed umpiring calls or some deflating skill errors in the back-half can really swing momentum.

 

[iluvparis]

Also when GC and GWS came it was pretty much a guaranteed win for their opponents each week so you would expect the % of bookies favorites to have won to be higher back then.

 

[STFU Donnie]

As a kid went to football in 1983 and top five teams were very even. My side had gone back to back premiers. Imagine my surprise being at Arden Street v Kangaroos and lose by 111 points....then a few weeks later North top of ladder are playing third on ladder Lions and we had lost three in a row badly. Kangaroos lose by 150 points to Fitzroy. So are we 261 points worse than Fitzroy ? Round 15 we meet Fitzroy and we only won one game of previous five matches going into it. Quarter time we are nearly 4 goals down to Fitzroy. Thrashing coming ? We won by nearly 6 goals....
Second last round we play North again that are top of ladder. They beat us by 111 points only a few months back.. Quarter time they lead by around four goals. We end up beating the side we lost to by 111 points by nearly 6 goals...
North top of ladder had lost a match during seasons by 25 goals.....
At top level, mentally if you off your game, anything can happen over two hours of a match.

By the way, in 1983, Lions and North went out of finals losing in straight sets....We also lost our last two games for season.
The team we kicked 10 goals against in third quarter of third last round, went on to win the premiership. In fact we beat Hawks every time we played them that season but they won the premiership.


This season top five are just as even. Anything, can and will happen. Good luck picking premiers with four weeks of finals to come.

I believe 1983 was the last occasion when the minor premiers (North) bowed out in straight sets. It could happen again this year. Another parallel.