Early model predictions for 2013

The V8 model has thrown up a few unexpected surprises for the make up of the ladder for the end of the year.  But before revealing the Cream Teams, Battlers and Cellar Dwellers the following points of note regarding the model need to be emphasised:
* predictions more than six weeks out need to be taken with a grain of salt as the "confidence factor" does swing a number of games particularly for the middle 6 teams.  The model has been reasonably accurate 10 to 6 weeks out from the finals in determining the make up of the final 4.
* Week to week injuries play an important role in the model particularly for the close loss/ close win swing games.
* Some tweaking of the "sold" games is underway - for instance Launceston has a home ground advantage for Hawthorn and it is debatable whether Richmond have played enough games in Darwin to consider it a home ground advantage.

With these points in mind the model currently predicts the top six (the Cream teams) to be:
Adelaide, Saint Kilda, West Coast, Hawthorn, Sydney and Geelong.

The battlers fighting for spot seven and eight are:
Fremantle, Brisbane, Melbourne, Carlton, Richmond and Port Adelaide.

Cellar dwellers to be:
North Melbourne, Collingwood, Essendon, Gold Coast, Greater Western Sydney and Western Bulldogs.

Initial surprises/ bold predictions:
Bulldogs for wooden spoon- depending on percentage; currently second bottom with GWS to get the wooden spoon
Adelaide v Saint Kilda Grand Final (still struggle to see how this could be: home ground advantages in the finals clinch this in the model at present; a couple of swing games going the other way and Hawks swamp the final ; more on this in a later post).
Collingwoods fall from grace (conceivable but there are a lot of close losses predicted in the model)
Melbournes dramatic rise - to finish 9th
Not sure if North being in the bottom six is a surprise or not.

The first six weeks will be analysed in depth in the next post.  Following that each teams season given the once over from the models perspective.