The Roar
The Roar

AFL
Advertisement

Opinion

Predicting Round 5 in the AFLW

Autoplay in... 6 (Cancel)
Up Next No more videos! Playlist is empty -
Replay
Cancel
Next
Roar Guru
24th February, 2021
0

We only picked four of seven winners last week, although the ELO-following football ratings correctly tagged Adelaide to upend Brisbane as well to get five right in all.

In stratifying the league into a top-six, bottom-five, and a tepid trio in the middle, all of the previous 21 outcomes had been correctly accounted for: no team outside the top six had defeated any of them, no team outside the bottom five had beaten anyone outside their grouping, and the tepid trio had played each other to a stalemate after just three weeks.

But after firmly declaring “Melbourne shouldn’t lose to a team outside the top six” and listing the Demons as 14-point favourites, we watched them get beaten by that margin instead.

Had Melbourne kicked something better than 2.12, of course, they might well have done something more meaningful instead against the highly-contrasting line of 6.1 that the Bulldogs kicked. It’s a rare game that you put twice as many scoring shots through the sticks and lose.

Rarer still are the games when you put exactly twice the inside-50s on the stat sheet, win twice the clearances, top your opponent in disposals, contested and uncontested possessions and fail to earn the four points. The Dees even won the free kick count!

The other clear miss on our score sheet was Adelaide’s complete victory at league-leading Brisbane Sunday afternoon. Starting with the 17-0 shutout of the Lions in the opening period, the Crows dominated across the board, leading Brisbane in every statistic except tackles.

Ebony Marinoff Chloe Scheer

Ebony Marinoff and Chloe Scheer of the Crows (Photo by AFL Media)

Advertisement

They made the game look like a finals match-up: Adelaide is the only AFLW team with more than two finals wins (Carlton has two, and the Crows have three), while Brisbane is the only one with more than one loss (they lost finals in 2017, 2018, and 2020, going 0-3).

We will have to trust our “ELO-following football” rating system more starting this week: it got Adelaide’s win right and set the GWS winning spread at 19.5, for a game they won by 20. So let’s depend on its supposed brilliance to look at Round 5’s games.

Friday – Geelong vs Richmond
Both teams sit winless in the bottom five, so the assumption is that one of them will finish the evening with their first win. The ratings have the Cats with a 5.4 point advantage, and as of late night Tuesday, the published spread was Geelong by 8.5, so we’ll say Richmond will lose by less than 8.5.

Saturday – Bulldogs vs Giants
The Doggies pulled off the first upset of a top-six team last week, outscoring Melbourne despite being doubled up in scoring shots. We’re sceptical of how good Footscray really is at this point, given the Demons had to go 2.12 to lose as they did.

However, we’re comfortable assuming they’ll be victorious Saturday, facing a bottom five club in the Giants. Oddsmakers have a 15.5 point spread, but ELO-FF puts the spread closer to ten. So take that as you see fit. We’re simply going to say that the Dogs will win.

Saturday – Fremantle vs Brisbane
Two of the best meet following the longest flight possible in the league. While the oddsmakers list the Dockers as 8.5 point favourites, our ratings include that flight and ended up over 20. So we’re taking Fremantle plus the spread.

Jess Wuetschner

(Chris Hyde/AFL Media/Getty Images)

Advertisement

Saturday – North Melbourne vs Carlton
Do the Kangaroos still get a “home field advantage” if they never play there? We gave them a tiny plus for the site, and apparently we matched with those oddsmakers, because both sources expect an 11-12 point Kangaroo win. So do I.

Sunday – Adelaide vs St Kilda
A top-six team hosts one of the tepid trio, and while both teams are coming off wins, they were hardly equivalent. Adelaide knocked off top-of-the-ladder Brisbane in Brisbane, while St Kilda beat winless Geelong.

Incidentally, Carlton defeated the Saints by 24 two weeks ago, and then could only beat perennially winless Richmond by five. Does that mean St Kilda’s 19 points worse than the Tigers?

Probably not, but they are more than the 19 points worse the oddsmakers say they are in this game. We’re taking Adelaide plus the points here.

Sunday – Collingwood vs Melbourne
Both the oddsmakers and our rating system have the Magpies winning by about seven points. It seems the top-six are all very comparable, and it also seems that after going 25 goals versus 10 behinds in their first three games, the Demons won’t go 2.12 again this week.

So, we’re going against our own ratings and taking Melbourne to win outright.

Sports opinion delivered daily 

   

Advertisement

Sunday – West Coast vs Gold Coast
Curiously, the ELO-FF ratings call for a draw, with the travel making up for the Suns’ advantage on the ratings’ table. Since the oddsmakers have the Eagles as 7.5 point faves, we’re taking Gold Coast to at least cover that.

Overall, the top-six are 16-1 outside their group (Crows, Lions, Magpies, Dockers, Demons, and Kangaroos), while the bottom five (Cats, Suns, Giants, Tigers, and Eagles) are 0-16.

The tepid trio (meaning the Blues, Saints, and Bulldogs) are 1-2 above them, 3-0 below, and 3-3 within their group. If these groupings stay to form this week, we can be assured of victories from the Bulldogs, the Kangaroos, and the Crows.

The first and last games are within the bottom-five, and the remaining two games are within the top-six, so we’re flying by the seat of our pants on those four teams in taking Geelong, Fremantle, Melbourne, and a draw between the Coasts (picking Gold Coast Suns against the West Coast Eagles spread).

Overall, the ELO-following football rating system is 22-6, a 79 per cent accuracy rate.

I’m 20-8, having picked against it twice and lost twice for a 71 per cent success rate.

Advertisement
close