Round One Feature Game: Crows v Hawks

The sellout battle of the birds in Adelaide is the chosen game for a number of reasons this week:
* Firstly I don't like doing feature games on Thursdays - (similar to the FMI web site: shout out to the margin tipping competition)
* Secondly I have recently relocated to Adelaide and as I follow the Hawks (not a financial supporting member this year) it is a personal choice to focus on this one
* Thirdly my models suggest that it will be a close game - favoring the home side by 12 pts)

Previous ten encounters

The Carlo Monty model has had an 80% success rate with the games since 2011 - a period when Hawthorn has been a strong favorite in 4 games and a slight favorite in 3.  

Hawthorn has won 8 of these encounters - notably the last one by 45 points.

The average margin of error with the tips has been 23.7 points - not great but well below the 30pt benchmark.

During the last 10 games Hawthorn has averaged 28 scoring shots per game and Adelaide have improved from 24 to 25 (last 5 games compared to the last 10).  Similarly, Hawthorn has averaged 111pt recently to Adelaide 92.

The Carlo Monty Model is predicting that these trends will be reversed in the 2019 opening round with a narrow win to Adelaide with a 12 point margin in a reasonably high scoring affair (approximately 110 to 98).

A free-flowing game is anticipated with open forward lines - a concern is whether the Hawks forward line can be both fed from the center and whether it can improve on the lowered standards (compared to recent Hawthorn history) forward conversion.

The Adelaide and Hawthorn recent shot model trends have similarity the recent increase in the Crows attack swings the model to favor the Crows.  The closeness of the attack and defense of both teams (plus the obvious class of both teams) indicates a close game.

The class of Hawthorn (and I believe but do not include in the model: the coaching ability of Clarkson) could shine through although I still anticipate/ predict a Crows victory and have them tipped for the win and for 25pts in the footytips.com Flexi competition but I have not included them in the streak competition.

Friday night change to flexi tip: moved from placing flexi points on Adelaide to Bulldogs (over Swans)

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Result

Adelaide: 7 13: 55

Hawthorn: 12 15: 87

WBR tipping results: tip incorrect, Margin Error: 44pts,  flexi NA, streak NA

Well as a Hawks supporter I am happy with the 4 points.  AS a modeler not so happy - incorrect tip and a large margin error.  The Hawks 27 shots on goal were as anticipated (accuracy a tad low), the coaching was superb and the delight/ surprise was the dominance of the defense in keeping the Crows to a meager 20 scoring shots - both well down on the recent average against Hawthorn but tellingly much lower than the model was predicting for this year.  it will be interesting to see the effect on next weeks predictions once all of this rounds games are concluded.

The free flowing nature of the game did not really kick in until just before half time.

Also very timely to switch the flexi points to the Bulldogs (missed out on the Brisbane win over West Coast - more on that in next weeks blog and the round up of this week  - but as a teaser there were a number of player based models that were predicting a (albeit narrow) Brisbane victory)

Next weeks feature game will be Hawks v Doggies at the G