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Each year, I gather the widest range possible of predictions for the sports I cover and write about in Australia and the United States. Then I weight those predictions as best I can (random YouTubers don’t carry the gravitas of, say, Cameron Rose), and combine them into one grand meta-forecast.
As an example, here was the meta-forecast for the AFLW season just concluded.
1. Melbourne
2. Adelaide (a close second!)
3. Brisbane
4. Western Bulldogs
5. Carlton (closer to fourth than believable now)
6. Collingwood
7. GWS
8. Fremantle
I’ll touch on the women’s GF at the end of the article.
We tend to cling to the previous year’s outcomes more than we should. For example, every year since the eight-team finals format was adopted, at least two of the eight men’s finals teams have changed. Sometimes three, yet never more than four.
This empirical ‘rule’ is well-known and almost legendary in its own right. And yet it’s almost infallible that the vast majority of predictions will fail to have even two changes on their list.
Consider my meta-prediction from the 2017 men’s season. Here’s the 2016 ladder, the meta-prediction for 2017 I compiled from a similarly vast array of sources, and the actual 2017 results:
| 2016 ladder | Meta-forecast for 2017 | 2017 ladder |
| Sydney | GWS Giants | Adelaide |
| Geelong | Western Bulldogs | Geelong |
| Hawthorn | Sydney | Richmond |
| GWS Giants | Adelaide | GWS Giants |
| Adelaide | Geelong | Port Adelaide |
| West Coast | West Coast | Sydney |
| Western Bulldogs | Hawthorn | Essendon |
| North Melbourne | St Kilda | West Coast |
| St Kilda | Melbourne | Melbourne |
| Port Adelaide | Collingwood | Western Bulldogs |
| Melbourne | Port Adelaide | St Kilda |
| Collingwood | Fremantle | Hawthorn |
| Richmond | Essendon | Collingwood |
| Carlton | Richmond | Fremantle |
| Gold Coast | North Melbourne | North Melbourne |
| Fremantle | Gold Coast | Carlton |
| Brisbane | Carlton | Gold Coast |
| Essendon | Brisbane | Brisbane |
The extent of our ‘adventurous predictions’ for finals as a mass community – and I’m including myself in this to some extent – was to realise the Kangaroos delisted all their veterans and were going into rebuilding mode, so we replaced them with the ninth-place team sliding into eighth.
Ooooh! Going out on a limb there, weren’t we?
But while it’s true that, singly, we don’t generally risk major moves, the other issue that clogs up the waterworks here is that even when individuals do, we all predict different major moves, and those often cancel each other out.
As many people who thought Port and Richmond were going to move into finals, there were a comparable number who thought they’d fall lower instead.
As an aside, I must confess I was one of those. I’m most embarrassed by my prediction of Port Adelaide not making finals, because that failure violated the most ironclad rule if you’re looking for a team to move up the next year: Port had too high a percentage for their record in 2016.
When that’s a significant gap – and the Power was 10-12 with a 106% in 2016 – it almost guarantees a big improvement in record the following year.
I’m not making that mistake again: Collingwood went 9-12-1 last year but were just three goals short of even in percentage. I’m expecting them to sneak into finals this season, as per my column two weeks ago.
Are Collingwood are on track for a surprise finals berth? (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
In fact, each of the errors I made in my forecasts last year is explicable in hindsight. GWS might have been first – change their two draws to victories and they were – but for a horror run of injuries last year.
Footscray was never a top three team – except for four weeks in September of 2016. They moved from seventh in 2016 to one game out of seventh in 2017. I had Sydney and Hawthorn falling, I just didn’t know how far.
Similarly, I had Adelaide and Essendon climbing; I just didn’t know how far.
I also almost nailed the bottom four. So, not so bad!
Enough looking backwards. Here’s your 2018 AFL meta-forecast!
1. Adelaide
2. GWS Giants
3. Sydney
4. Geelong
5. Richmond
6. Port Adelaide
7. Melbourne
8. Essendon
Wait a second! Dang it, guys, ya did it again! You replaced a fading West Coast, who was in eighth place and losing their veterans, and simply replaced them with ninth place Melbourne and called it your finals forecast?
Have we learned nothing from history?
Alright, let’s give you a few plaudits before we go on. We didn’t repeat the Bulldog mistake – Richmond’s still a top team, but let’s see them back up their finals run before we acclaim them a dynasty.
Fair enough. To be honest, I’ve got them at third again, moving Port up and Geelong down – a long way down to 10th, in fact. But that’s a reasonable statement.
Similarly, with the exception of our two-team-out rule, it’s hard to argue with most of those teams.
But we’re going to anyway.
Why would Sydney move up? Their schedule’s just as tough in games 1-6 as it was last year, and there’s nothing to suggest an improved Swans team to face it.
We don’t see Port moving any higher? They actually added pieces to their weaponry!
Going on…
9. Western Bulldogs
10. Hawthorn
11. St Kilda
12. West Coast
13. Collingwood
14. Fremantle
15. Brisbane
16. Carlton
17. Gold Coast
18. North Melbourne
Alright, again, it’s hard to argue with the general feel of this list. I actually put the Suns in 19th place, as insane as their schedule is this season. Down the road, they’ll be tougher and better for it, but this season is going to be a firing squad for the young Suns.
Don’t ask how I found a 19th place. It’s a metaphor, okay? But the answer is that I put a blank spot above them in 18th…
But this looks suspiciously like last year’s final ladder, with some obvious adjustments.
Brisbane on the rise by three places? That’s winning just ONE more game. I have them in 12th this year.
West Coast down to 12th? It’s hard to know, but if you’re basing this on history, the Roos fell to 15th last year.
We also have North continuing to rebuild and suffering the consequences because of it.
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Doggies, Hawks, and Saints? Last season, they were in the same spots – removing the Eagles from their position as we have – except that now we think Hawthorn will pass St Kilda? Why?
I suspect the majority of folks simply don’t know what to do with either Collingwood or Fremantle this season. I have them both in my top eight.
There’s some faith involved in that suggestion, true, but I truly believe these meta-predictions are the residue of ‘move-’em-over’ thinking. Where were they last year? Yeah, that’s about right, move ‘em over.
But looking at their schedules, their pre-seasons, and frankly the lack of progress above them? I wrote this all out in this space a couple of weeks ago, but nothing I’ve watched has changed my opinion.
I’m starting the season thinking these are the two new teams in finals, not Melbourne or St Kilda.
Mind you, I’d love to be wrong, especially the part about the Demons and Saints missing out on finals yet again. Talk about starving fan bases! Tigerland and Bulldog Nation just had their moments of glory – let’s see a finals victory or two for Melbourne and St Kilda sooner rather than later!
Finally, let’s take an ELO-Following Football look at Saturday’s AFLW Grand Final, which should come close to selling out Ikon Park if it doesn’t actually do so. Best case scenario for the AFL: three seats short of capacity.
Bulldogs and Demons fans alike knew it was coming – they were just surprised it took until there were 90 seconds to go before Brooke Lochland slammed home the winning goal on Saturday night.
With the wind at their back, the third-quarter lead was never going to be large enough to hold up against the Dogs’ scoring prowess, and yet the Demons kept them out of the sticks for that winning score for a long time.
With their collapse over the last 20 minutes on Sunday afternoon, Adelaide made sure that they wouldn’t have the chance to defend their title.
Instead, the team they defeated for the prize last year, the Brisbane Lions, stood up when the challenge was there to be won Friday night and took second place when it seemed like a shot in the dark. Losses by the Demons and Crows landed them where they were last year: the Grand Final.
So, who wins this Saturday? The minor premiers or the defending minor premiers?
The Doggies are slight favorites (2.1 points) on the ELO-Following Football ratings, as well as with the punters, but then the Lions were favored last year by more than that – a full goal – and still lost.
Technically, the Dogs are the home team this weekend, but they haven’t even played at Ikon Park this season, and when they played Carlton there last year, they lost 54-48.
Brisbane, ironically, has played at Ikon this year, defeating the Blues 40-18 there in round three for Carlton’s first loss of the season.
Over the last three games, ever since that 86-point game against Carlton, the Bulldogs have failed to match what its rating says it should have done in each game, despite winning two of them by narrow margins. The same is true for the professional odds, except that Saturday’s game was a wash, depending on when you bet.
Meanwhile, Brisbane had the same three-game streak until the surprise blowout of GWS last weekend. The question becomes, was that a change of circumstance for the 4-3 Lions, or a trend that makes them more likely to stay hot this Saturday?
The two teams played up at South Pine in Round 2 this season, with the Lions favored in a battle of 1-0 teams but then losing their first regular season game ever to the Bulldogs, falling 33-24 in a pretty competitive game.
That’s about the result I expect to see happen again this weekend, only closer. Let’s call it 33-30 instead.
It should be a competitive game, so pull up a chair and watch!
The AFL’s done their auxiliary league a solid by not putting any men’s matches in the opening slot on Saturday, so you’re not going to “miss anything”!
After all, in this most parity-packed season in the history of just about any league imaginable, we can only hope and pray that the league’s grand final will hold suit!
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