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MAFL 2010 : Round 27 Results (GF 2.0)

If MARS Ratings are to be believed, the right team won on Saturday.

In winning so emphatically, Collingwood lifted its MARS Rating by 3.7 points to finish the season rated 1,055.4, which rates it above the Geelong of 2009 (1,044.5) but below the Geelongs of 2008 (1,065.9) and 2007 (1,058.3). Prior to that, the only teams with a higher end-of-season MARS Rating since 1999 were the Lions of 2002 (1,056.2) and the Dons of 2000 (1,072.7).

Grand Final Margins Through History and a Last Look at the 2010 Home-and-Away Season

A couple of final charts before GF 2.0.

The first chart looks at the history of Grand Finals, again. Each point in the chart reflects four things about the Grand Final to which it pertains:

• The margin of victory (indicated by the point's height)
• The year of the victory (indicated by the vertical displacement of the point)
• The decade of the victory (indicated by the colour of the point)
• Whether the winner was the team from higher or lower on the home-and-away season ladder (indicated by the point's shape, with triangles indicating a victory by the higher-placed team and circles a victory by the lower-placed team)

MAFL 2010 : Round 27 (or GF 2.0)

Every so often things crop up that unexpectedly test the statistical models I've constructed. For example a client will ask for a model to be used for a practical purpose such as forecasting, or they'll ask me to rerun a set of scenarios that I've created using a model, but this time with slightly different inputs.

Drawing On Hindsight

When sports journos wait until after a contest has been decided before declaring a group of winning punters to be "savvy", I find it hard not to be at least a little cynical about the aptness of the label.

The Bias in Line Betting Revisited

Some blogs almost write themselves. This hasn't been one of them.

It all started when I read a journal article - to which I'd now link if I could find the darned thing again - that suggested a bias in NFL (or maybe it was College Football) spread betting markets arising from bookmakers' tendency to over-correct when a team won on line betting. The authors found that after a team won on line betting one week it was less likely to win on line betting next week because it was forced to overcome too large a handicap.

MAFL 2010 : Round 26 Results (of a fashion)

After that it all feels a little flat.

I just assumed there'd be extra time on Saturday and at least an attempt to find a winner on the day; making 44 players, 2 coaching staffs, 100,000 spectators and countless fans go through that all again seems cruel, unusual and frankly unnecessary.