Round Four - A quick upload

Busy with work interstate and helping with a house pack up/ interstate move...so quick run through of the tips and no feature game this week...

Tigers over Port in Adelaide the stand out tip.

West Coast to comfortably win the Derby.

Essendon to topple Lions is one I would not tip based on my gut but model is flagging as a reasonable home win and worth a flexi tip.

Melbourne to topple Swans in Sydney is the other shocker of a model tip - if this one comes off it will be in the minority of tippers: Guttsy call and flexi!

Collingwood for the streak tip over the Bulldogs - I would like to think this one will be closer but this tip sits well with me.

Results
Well a good week for the Flexi tips - all three coming in and boosting the model into the top 400 on footytips.com.au !

A impressively low MAE of just under 15pts and an even spread - pushing the model to 4th on the Monash normal tip competition - this will be hard to maintain but here is hoping.

Frustratingly close tips with Cats and Hawks - making for a great feature game in the upcoming round.

And Adelaide - well the model has them finishing 11th at the end of the year so getting close to officially goooone.  Perhaps a tad early to call it.  But calling Sydney not going to be in finals this year.

Round Three - a lot of close games including the opening feature game

The Carlo Monty Model is predicting a 1 point win for the Cats over the Crows (although if I rounded off the model predicts a draw - a rarity in the football tipping community) in Adelaide - a rare away win (I hope) for matches between these two.  I was tempted to have the Brisbane v Port game as the feature as I think this will be a close and entertaining game wit ha narrow victory to the home team.

Giants v Tigers was possibly another consideration but I think the fragility of the Tigers could be exposed - currently going for a small victory for Giants but the model would not be surprised with a 6 goal runaway in final quarter drubbing.

Freo Saints game was not considered for feature status despite a close finish predicted - quality of play has not been great - could easily be an away win for the Saints.

Collingwood versus Eagles could also be a good game to watch but not enticing enough for flexi tip and not a runaway win prediction suitable for a streak tip.

Melbourne Essendon game will not be pretty to watch - model is still backing the Dees who have not been good.  Note have predicted a streak tip for the Dees (I am nervous about this tip)

Bulldogs predicted to keep their fans happy with a percentage boosting home win.

Feature game

Model has only had a 50 50 success in recent times although a respectable MAE of 23.5.  Home teams have been favoured with wins.  Cats have averaged more scoring shots but Crows have been more accurate - current prediction is 86 each with a fraction over for Cats:

If it is a draw I predicted it.
If Cats win - I told you so: Finals bound; Oh Dear Crows season over
If Crows win - they have bounced back; Cats stumble

Results
How good are the Cats (better than the Crows; but Crows had their chances and enough shots on goal - honorable loss but not far from being gone?)

Melbourne on the other hand - how bad is bad?  One good quarter against a not too highly rated team and then three quarters of stuff all.

Carlton offering signs of hope for the future; Swans looking at somewhere between 7 and 14th.

GWS and Brisbane rolling on - Brisbane impressing lets see how the next four weeks go.

West Coast, Bulldogs and Hawks up and down a bit.

Freo and Saints gave us a close game - Saints accuracy hurting again like 2018 despite early 2019 being reasonable.

Round Two - mainly home teams & Hawks v Doggies feature

This weeks tips have four games with margins under two goals and a maximum of six goals which should make for exciting viewing.  Hopefully, North and the Bombers put in better performances than last week - more so as the model is actually tipping both which could be very embarrassing.

Due to the predicted close nature of most games the model is only picking one game to be added to the streak tipping (streak tips are a long game: target for the year is to have a couple of tips each week - I want to get a streak over 20 this year).  Port  over Carlton is the sole streak tip this week.

Flexi tipping is more interesting this week with the 50% game tipping the Crows over Sydney - in Sydney.  A difficult one to convince me that the model will be correct as the Crows forward lien was demolished last week and Sydney have a good defense.  however, the Swans did not exactly impress either.  Whichever team loses (and particularly if they lose big) will receive a lot of media coverage in their home towns on Sunday/ Monday.

Richmond over Pies - odds are nicely even and I feel favor Richmond.  And North over Brisbane for the other - surely North have to bounce back at Docklands?

The all important tips:

Feature Game: Hawks v Doggies

Historically this is one game I go to with a close friend and my daughter (both mad Doggies supporters) and apart from seeing Bob Murphy go down a couple of years ago or when Buddy kicked about 1 goal 15 pts the games have been very enjoyable - with a mix of wins and loses.

Both teams go into this game with good wins the week before.  The model has had an excellent recent form on the big grounds (and a not so flash prediction hit rate on the indoor venue).  The Hawks have been favorite in 9 of the last 10 encounters and have averaged about 4 more scoring shots - scoring just over 100pts on average to the Doggies just under 80

The Bulldogs shot trend suggests that the Hawks will prevail but the style of play of both teams should be/ will be showcased on the large open spaces of the MCG

Results

Well, another week with a 4, a just over flexi and one more to the active streak (albeit an active cautious streak of 2).  A round MAE of 36.7

Richmond seriously under performing and opened up a bit by the Pies.

Adelaide doing what I had expected from the model - providing the overall slight profit on flexi tips.

Essendon under performing again.

Carlton putting up a decent fight and showing some hope for their supporters.

Geelong  annihilating the Dees who have really dropped the bundle this year - based on the first two rounds the end of year projections have them missing the eight.

West Coast bounced back positively.

North dropped the bundle and things are looking grim for the rest of the year.

Hawks lost to the better team on the day and the Doggies are impressing me and my model moving into the projected finals quite highly at the moment.

Freo/ Gold Coast - lost the flip of the coin on this one : (

Next weeks feature game:  has to be Crows v Cats which I am tipping Cats by 1 with a big flexi tip to boot.

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

2019 - New town, new job, light weight footy tipping...

The WBR blog has moved from the leafy environs of Eltham to the aptly named Happy Valley in South Australia (a seemingly lone Hawks supporter in the bi-modal land of Crows-Port supporters).  The work-based move (i.e. not wanting to work for the global company in China) has been a very big shift which is still taking time to settle into a new routine - I am sure that it will.  However, in the meantime, the football tipping is progressing but at a lower priority - last years lack of posts indicates that this has been happening for a while.

I am spending less time on the monte carlo simulations for the end of year predictions and relying more on my forward prediction shot model as the guide for finals appearances.  Coupled with this I am focusing on the next round with a feature game plus the forward predictions four rounds into the future ("one month is a lifetime in footy") which will cause less frustration and angst compared to the variability of 20 rounds into the future.

That said; the end of year shot prediction model ranks the teams as such:

Richmond should lock in a top-four position and Melbourne supporters should see some glory this year.  There will be a battle for the other two top four positions and the staying in the eight group.  The games between this cluster of 7 should be weekly blockbusters and close entertaining games.

The outsider that the carlo monty simulations pick to watch is the Bulldogs - either a glorious year or a fans rollercoaster - my outside tip for 7th or 8th but some simulations have them very high up (subject to an early season on fire run of games).

Wooden spoon seems to be a battle between the Blues and Gold Coast - their matchups will determine the ownership.

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Early predictions for Round 1:

Results

Well the Richmond and Bulldogs tips were excellent but being 101 points off the mark with North/ Freo coupled with underestimating Port, dramatically overestimating Essendon plus being pleasantly surprised by Hawthorn and Brisbane made for an overall disappointing round from a model perspective.

The Carlton: Richmond game went to the modelling script and offers hope for the blues fans as there were signs of effort.

The Pies: Cats game was entertaining enough and justifies (in my mind) the models long term season expectation that these teams are similarly placed as final eight contenders.

Melbourne's poor offence showing - lowest score  since a 56 point showing against Richmond early last year is a worrying sign that the model is over rating the Demons.  I think it is more a case of Melbourne under performing rather than Port over performing - although it was an impressive display from a lot of newcomers/ well coached.  Ports score for is slightly above the recent average.

Hawthorn shut down Adelaide's offence in magnificent style and their offence performed to model expectations.  Adelaide were out played - also of note is they led in most of the traditional stats of kicks, hand passes, marks etc but in reality got clobbered.

Bulldogs and Swans performed to the models expectations.  Bulldogs versus Hawks next week is the game to watch.

The Suns performed above expectations, the Saints a bit below: resulting in an entertaining enough game.

Bombers and North - terrible.

Round Two

Incorrect Round One tips: waterlogged Suns swim past Roos and Crows cough up a handy lead (oh and lucky correct tip with Geelong over Demons).  Enough said of round One as round Two is upon us already...

Overall tips:

Yes the model has picked Collingwood over the Giants (The Giants were impressive with their running at Manuka Oval on the weekend and I am quietly concerned with this tip).  The Crows Tigers game is discussed in detail below.  The remainder of the games are also interesting and I predict there will be a much larger spread of tip results in everybody's competitions this week compared to the round one favorites  dominating.

Feature Game: Crows to ride the wave of the home ground advantage

Adelaide to win by 10 points (but not said with enough confidence or historical support).

Similar scoring shots predicted with similar accuracy.  The accuracy with the previous head to heads is only 60% but with a sub 30 average error.  The Crows have been consistently favorites just pipping the frequency of the Tigers favoritism.

Round One: Feature game

This is a bit of work in progress - produced early as I am trying to automate the uploading of text and graphics: doing this as a bit of practice over the Christmas work enforced holiday period

The WayBeyondRedemption site is aiming to focus on the first game of each round in detail in the 2018 season.  This is linked to the work and family tipping competitions using the footytips.com.au site as the arbitrator of family and social tipping where competitors on equal tipping points are separated via the margin tipping – which is carried out on the first game of each round.  Hence, extra attention is devoted to the feature game.

Tigers to outclass the Blues

The first feature game for 2018 is the now “traditional” first round clash and season opener Richmond v Carlton.  The two teams have met in the first round every year since 2012 (the opening game each year since 2014).  Richmond have won every encounter since 2014 and the model is confident that this will continue in 2018.  This tip must be tempered with the knowledge that the model has been wrong four times during the last ten encounters – three of those Carlton upset wins.  The 2018 prediction currently sits at a hefty 63 point thrashing of the Blues at the hands of the reigning premier.  This level of prediction has historically produced a correct tip 95% of the time – the only recent (since 2000) upsets have been a memorable Bulldogs victory over the 2000 Bombers in the last round and the Bombers 6 point loss to the Demons in a low scoring affair in 2012.

Currently Richmond are clearly the bookies favorite going into the game – rightly so for a reigning premier.  Richmond have been the clear favorite in the previous four encounters and are well worth considering  in the footytips.com.au flexi tipping if you take a very conservative approach.  The Carlo Monty model will be spreading the flexi tips across three other games at this stage (currently spreading the 100 points across three games: Hawks, Roos and Crows).

The shot model employed by the WayBeyondRedemption site is anticipating a heavy scoring of up to 40 scoring shots for Richmond and as low as 16 shots for the Blues (assuming good ground and weather conditions at the MCG).  The previous five encounters has seen Richmond score an average of 27 scoring shots to Carltons 21.  Richmond have averaged 100 points to Carltons 75 during the same period.  The prediction for round one 2018 is for a 63 point victory for the Tigers.

The last ten games for Richmond have been very good – a drought breaking Premiership with other excellent finals games and a recent percentage of over 160%.  A narrow loss to Geelong in Geelong the only recent blemish.  The Carlo Monty model correctly tipped seven of the Tigers last ten games – getting the two Geelong encounters and the GWS tips wrong.

Similarly with Carltons last ten games the model correctly tipped seven but was more accurate with the margins with an average error of just over 21 points (being under 30 is the benchmark).  During the last five and ten games Richmond have clearly been (on average) favorite and Carlton very clearly underdog.  Interestingly Richmond have averaged 26 shots for and 20 against while Carlton have averaged 25 for and 23 against.  The healthy shots for for Carlton give a little bit of false hope for the supporters as the quality of opposition was noticeably different.

For home teams with odds of $1.25 to $1.35 since 2000 (some of the earlier odds were estimated) the model has an 80% success rate of tipping winners: 87 of 108 tips.  Only one of the incorrect tips had an error of greater than 63 points – adding some confidence to the Richmond tip of 63 points.

Closer to the actual game day I will update the margin predictions from the major newspapers (The Age and The Herald Sun).

Both The Age and Herald Sun tipsters have overwhelmingly backed Richmond (Chris Judd being the loyal exception).  The Carlo Monty tip comes in as the second largest.  Computer tippers are slow to upload their tips prior to the first Thursday game - shall update later today.

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Well: Ric 17 19: 121 d Car 15 5: 95
36 scoring shots to 20: Tigers under perform to my model by 4 shots, Blues over perform by 4 plus the added benefit of a high accuracy.  I'll take the correct tip (along with the other 90 odd% of tippers) and lament the 37 pts adrift with the margin tip