Hawks: shots on goal

Much has been said of the Hawks being a precision kicking team of recent times.  They certainly have a power packed forward line so I was not surprised to see the dramatic increase in their shots on goal in recent times (even taking into account two new teams in the competition).  But what did surprise me is the consistency of the average points per shot on goal (not including the out of bounds but including rushed).

Accuracy on goal is not only a Buddy issue but surely precision kicking in general play should also translate into an significant or noticeable average points per shot on goal?  But a cursory examination of other teams shows the same scatter.

Something to analyse when my tipping percentage is way too low to be competitive later in the season??

Losing touch with the bookies

Five correct tips, although creditable was two less than the bookies this week.

The five teams who did right by Carlo Monty this week were:

• Hawks – continuing to power on; metering out what they need to comfortably win.  The model is predicting them as outright favourite for the flag.  The games against Melbourne, GWS and the Doggies will be potentially very embarrassing.
•  Port did what was needed and bolstered their model position by winning by more than expected.
•  Adelaide and the Roos were fortunate enough to come up against the Dogs and Bears who were definitely in their respective dog house and cave.
•  And Melbourne either had the fear of God show its face at ¾ time or organised crime got a hold on match fixing big time? (should not joke about such matters, but seriously where did Melbourne pull that last quarter from?)

The disappointments this week were:

• West Coast – with 30 scoring shots to the Blues 29. (Blues should not get ahead of themselves with this win).
• Sydney – tough opponent for sure but what the?
•  Richmond finally come up against some proper competition and the media bus may need to pull over to the side and have a calming coffee: Collingwood to their credit are performing better than the model.  Still not out of the woods for the end of year predictions though.
• The Saints – the fall from grace of the Saints is greater than the media supported rise of Richmond and Port’s “coach led” renaissance.
• The predictions this year has seen a high proportion of unexpected home team losses: the next chart shows 2013 and the second chart shows the 2010-2013 model data.  Come on law of averages and boost the tipping accuracy!

2013 to date

2010 to 2013 to date

The upshot is the model is slipping a bit too far below the median for my liking – it is going to take a lot of weeks to catch up. (red line above is Carlo Monty, middle brown is the bookies which is much lower than the same time as last year; the two extremes are the top and bottom on the footy tipping. com.au website.

The only comfort from a modelling perspective is that I am only two behind Swinburne and Footy Maths.  MAFL (average of margin models) is going as well as the bookies.  I am just ahead of footy forecaster.  All of us modellers have our work cut out to get over the 75% (80%) targets.

The other drama for the weekend tipping was the streak tipping came to a halt (with the Swans, Saints then West Coast!) and then built up to three.  Being in the top third at this stage is still acceptable but with the high number of tipsters above 15 at this stage of the year somebody will get over 50 for the year.

To round out the disappointing tipping round the flexi tipping was a sub 100 round.  The top tipster is on an impressive 1065 (out of a possible maximum of 1255)

Moving onto the tips for this week:  Essendon v Collingwood deserve the blockbuster title this week.  Having tipped Collingwood perhaps this is the kiss of death because I have not correctly tipped the first game of each round so far.  With my luck Pies will have more scoring shots and loose!

Sydney v Saints is a conflict for me.  My gut is telling me that the Saints are gone for the year and will be plummeting down my end of year ladder predictions but the Saints losses to Essendon, Gold Coast and Richmond have all been performing better than expected this year: perhaps the Saints are just underperforming a bit – well that is what the model is currently saying.  Home ground advantage and the Swans capitulation last week sees the model still sticking with the Saints.

Fremantle at home are tipped to whallop the tigers.  Media Band Wagon Bus not travelling across the continent this week.  Just as well the tigers have got the 50k+ members signed up already.

Gold coast to win narrowly over the Giants.

Carlton v Adelaide will not be pretty but home ground advantage has the Blues putting two together (but the model inflated the win over the West Coast because it uses a greater weighting for points for and against as opposed to scoring shots).  Conclusion this is the worry in the model this week.

Geelong set to demolish Doggies.

Similarly Brisbane bouncing back; bringing the Demons back to earth big time.

Hawks roll on with another comfortable win.

The interesting tip of the week is Port over West Coast:  wheels falling off the weagles mobile?  This is the first tip of the season that is different to the pre season predictions (I really needed a few more changes in the previous rounds given my current form).  The last time West Coast kicked a horrible points to goals tally (round 4 last year with their 5G 21pt victory over the Hawks 5G 16pt) they followed up with wins over Richmond and North.  For Port the previous wins over Melbourne, GWS and Gold Coast were not particularly taxing; the win over Adelaide was on the back of a good quarter.  However, with West Coasts current form it offers Port a realistic chance to go 5-0: a healthy way to making the finals.

Streak tipping: Freo, Cats, Bris and Hawks.

Flexi favourites: Pies: 25pts; Saints: 15; Gold Coast 25; Carlton: 15; Port 15 and Hawks 5.