Which AFL Club Has The Easiest Fixture in 2018?

It’s Collingwood, right? The press around the Australian Football League fixture for 2018 certainly focused upon the ‘dream draw’ the Magpies received. Each AFL team only plays five teams twice, and three of Collingwood’s return matches are against bottom teams – their ‘reward’ for finishing in a relatively low position themselves in 2017.

I agree with the consensus view here. I also rate Collingwood as having the easiest AFL fixture in 2018, with a boost of 46 points over the season compared to an average draw (see table below).

How did I determine this? Basically I take the total strength of each team’s opponents throughout the season, and adjust for home ground advantage. The ratings of ‘team strength’ and ‘home ground advantage’ are both taken from my regular AFL Power Rankings system, which aims to give a more accurate reflection of team strength than the AFL ladder does. Take note of this point, that the ladder can sometimes ‘lie’ is important …   

Under this system, a team’s overall fixture rating can be seen as the result of three components:

·         First, there is the total strength of the opponents a team plays twice rather than just once. Under the AFL’s weighted fixture system, which divides teams up into groups of six based on where they finished on the ladder in 2017, this favours the teams that finished near the bottom last season.

·         Second, there is the total net home ground advantage of where a team plays during the season. I say it every year: don’t play your ‘home’ games interstate if you want to do well on this component.

·         And finally there is the effect of not playing your own team. For example, when I’m counting up the strength of reigning premier Richmond’s opponents there is one really good team missing that everyone else has to play: Richmond themselves.  

Collingwood, Port, and the value of seeming to be worse than you are

When it comes to showing how strong teams really are the ladder sometimes ‘lies’, or at least misleads. If I was to characterise the relative strength of each team in 2017, I would do it as follows:  

Really Good: Adelaide, Richmond, Sydney.

Good: Geelong, GWS, Port Adelaide.

Average: Collingwood, Essendon, Hawthorn, Melbourne, St. Kilda, West Coast, Western Bulldogs.

Below Average: Carlton, North Melbourne.

Well Below Average: Brisbane, Fremantle, Gold Coast.

Several other stats-based rating systems – admittedly similar to mine – would give a broadly similar picture: see Matter of Stats, The Arc, FootyMaths Institute, and Hurling People Now, among others.  

But that’s not how the AFL weighs its fixture. As said before it divides teams into groups of six based on how they finished on the ladder in 2017. Depending on how strong you are relative to other teams in your group this can work out well or badly. And in 2018 this works out well for two teams that were the top teams in their groups: Collingwood and Port Adelaide.

Collingwood finished in 13th spot in 2017, putting them at the top of the ‘bottom six’ group. Compared to the other teams in their group the Magpies finished a win and a draw clear of Fremantle – who had a few close wins in 2017 – and three wins and a draw clear of anyone else. They also finished the season off well, so I think they may even be a little better than some of the teams in the next-highest group. Give an average team a fixture that befits a ‘cellar-dweller’ and you have an easy fixture for 2018.

Port Adelaide, meanwhile, finished in 7th spot, putting them at the top of the ‘middle’ group. The Power dropped to 7th after losing a final in extra time to the West Coast Eagles, but their win-loss record was closer to the top four sides than it was to the teams that snuck into the final eight. As a result they play only one ‘top six’ team twice – cross-town rivals the Adelaide Crows. Give a good team a fixture that befits an average side and you also have a relatively friendly schedule.      

I also rate Sydney as having a relatively easy fixture in 2018. After a poor start to 2017 the Swans went on a seriously good run, before it all came unstuck in the semi-finals. Sydney only has to play two matches against the strongest sides of 2017, at least one less than everyone else – they only play Adelaide and Richmond once … and of course, unlike everyone else, they don’t have to play Sydney.

Which teams got it ‘tough’? – the teams that don’t often play host to ‘out-of-towners’

As picked up by the press, reigning premiers Richmond has one of the toughest fixtures in 2018. The Tigers’ only return match against one of the bottom six sides from 2017 is against Collingwood, the toughest of the group. By my rankings, all the teams they play twice are average or above-average sides. It’s a sharp turnaround from the favourable fixture they got last year after finishing 13th in 2016.

I also rate the fixtures of St. Kilda and Essendon as being relatively hard. The Saints get return matches against two of the top six teams in 2018, but none against any of the ‘really bad’ teams. But what also hurts the Saints and Bombers is getting only four games in Victoria against non-Victorian sides, giving them a lower net home ground advantage over the season than most teams. While it matters how much you travel, it also matters how much teams are travelling to play you.    

But really … your fixture only has a marginal effect, though it can help you on your way

We all know that the strength of teams can end up quite different to how you expect it to be. Teams would have been relatively happy about the prospect of playing Richmond twice going into 2017 – after the Tigers massively improved not so much.

But the difference between the hardest fixture and easiest fixture is estimated to be only 93 points, or about four points per match. The net point differential between the Adelaide Crows and the Brisbane Lions last year was 1288 points, or almost 10 goals per match. If Collingwood remains an average team then their relatively easy fixture is not by itself going to bridge the gap between themselves and the very good ones. 

That’s not to say though that an easy fixture doesn’t give you a helping hand. When premiers Richmond finished third on percentage ahead of GWS last year they avoided a first-up final in Adelaide. The net point differential between the Tigers and Giants was 39 points. Due to their horrid 2016 season though, Richmond got to play Brisbane, Carlton, and Fremantle twice. I estimated that their net advantage over the Giants’ fixture was … 60 points.

Cheers to finishing in 13th! Every little bit of advantage counts Magpies …

AFL Power Rankings: Round 1 2018

Welcome back to the eighth season of my Australian Football League Power Rankings, my attempt at taking a step back from the ‘noise’ of the week-to-week AFL results and assessing where every team is ‘truly’ at.

Basically, the Power Rankings work like this. They take each team’s last season worth of games, with more recent games receiving a higher weight. Then they add up a team’s net margin in each of those margins, adjusting for the strength of the team’s opponent and home ground advantage. (You can find the details of the ranking formula here.) So, for example, losing narrowly to the Adelaide Crows at the Adelaide Oval can be worth more than beating a lowly-ranked team like the Brisbane Lions.

When we last left things after the 2017 season, I would have roughly characterised the 18 teams as follows:

Really Good: Adelaide, Richmond, Sydney.

Good: Geelong, GWS, Port Adelaide.

Average: Collingwood, Essendon, Hawthorn, Melbourne, St. Kilda, West Coast, Western Bulldogs.

Below Average: Carlton, North Melbourne.

Well Below Average: Brisbane, Fremantle, Gold Coast. 

So, after the first round of the new season, where are we at?

Sydney extends its lead in top spot with a five-goal win against the West Coast Eagles in Perth. Richmond did just enough against Carlton to maintain its ranking points, while Adelaide slipped a bit after losing first up to Essendon.

The four teams that did the most to change the rankings’ view of them on the weekend were GWS and Hawthorn in the upward direction, and their opponents the Western Bulldogs and Collingwood in the downward direction. GWS edged closer to ‘really good’ with an 82 point thrashing of the Dogs, who are now slipping further into ‘below average’ territory. Hawthorn meanwhile had a 34 point win against a team that the rankings had more or less considered a ‘peer’ going into the season, edging the Hawks closer towards the ‘good’ category.

Finally, for those people who have been following my AFL Women’s Power Rankings over the past couple of months, how did that end up? Well actually, despite the Brisbane Lions’ women’s team missing out on the premiership to the Western Bulldogs they ended up as the top-ranked side, given that they only lost by a goal playing in Melbourne. Which is really no consolation at all, other than to say that they put in a good performance on the weekend, and would have been a worthy premiership winner. Well done to the Doggies though, who were just as worthy, being one of the best-performed sides for most of the way through. We’ll see you again for the Women’s Power Rankings – with two new sides – in 2019.

AFL WOMEN’S Power Rankings: Round 7 2018

So after all of the rounds of the 2018 AFL Women’s season are finished the team that the rankings think is the best is … Collingwood?!

That may be a surprise given that the Magpies only finished fifth on the actual ladder. However like the Swans in the men’s AFL competition last year Collingwood was slow out of the blocks to start the season – ultimately hobbling their Grand Final chances – and then became one of the best sides going around by the end of it.

After Round 3 this year the Magpies had lost their first three matches, and were ranked last by a decent margin. In these rankings though a team’s last four weeks counts for almost 80 per cent of their ranking points, and Collingwood hasn’t had a bad week over that period. They dispatched most of the higher-placed teams – Melbourne, Brisbane away, and Adelaide – and ran ladder leader the Western Bulldogs close in their only loss over that span. 

However the Magpies are not in the Grand Final, and it’s the next two highest ranked sides – the Western Bulldogs and Brisbane – who will play off in next week’s decider. The two sides are rated as fairly even, with Brisbane taking in a jump in the rankings after demolishing GWS on Friday night. Last week the Lions were rated as the unlikeliest of the five teams that still had a chance of being in the Grand Final to make it. But once they beat the Giants they only needed two results to go their way, and that’s how things fell.

So who is more likely to win? – the Bulldogs or the Lions?

It’s been a fairly even season all around in the AFLW, and neither the Dogs nor the Lions are that much far ahead of the rest of the competition … or each other. The Dogs won five out of seven matches, and the Lions four out of seven, with Brisbane just ahead of the Demons on percentage. Every other team, except Carlton, won only one game less than the Lions.

In other words neither side, like everyone else, has had a consistent record of good results. The Dogs’ high ranking and ladder position rests a lot on their massive win against Carlton a few weeks back. Brisbane’s current ranking and Grand Final qualification is largely a result of their huge win against GWS on the weekend.

Given all of that, and that the Western Bulldogs have the slight ‘home ground’ advantage (only in that they don’t have to travel interstate, with the Grand Final actually being played at Carlton’s home ground of Ikon Park) I’m tipping a narrow Dogs victory. But really, nothing about this AFLW season has been predictable, and there would be little surprise is seeing Brisbane right last year’s Grand Final loss. Hopefully this week’s match is as good as that one.

AFL WOMEN’S Power Rankings: Round 6 2018

 

Last week I outlined the conditions needed to set up a ‘very exciting final round’ for this year’s AFLW season – namely the Demons, Giants, and Crows all winning on the weekend – and they all came to pass … As a result, heading into the final round we have five teams that have a chance of finishing in the top two positons and therefore playing off in the Grand Final, and it will come down to the very last match to decide who goes through.

Those five teams are:

• Western Bulldogs and Melbourne – with 4 wins each (16 points)
• GWS and Adelaide – 3 wins and a draw each (14 points)
• Brisbane – 3 wins (12 points).

This weekend GWS plays Brisbane in Sydney on the Friday night, the Bulldogs play Melbourne on the Saturday night, and – in the last match of the regular season – Adelaide travels to Melbourne to play Collingwood on the Sunday.

• For the Bulldogs and Melbourne whoever wins will finish on top, and gets to host the Grand Final. If they draw the Dogs will finish top, unless the Giants or Crows overhaul them on percentage.

• The loser of the match will be in a very precarious position. They can still make the Grand Final, but will rely on the Giants and Crows both not winning, and the Lions not overtaking them on percentage. The Dogs have a healthy advantage in terms of percentage over the Lions, but the Demons will be running things fine if they have to rely on this scenario.

• For GWS and Adelaide their fates are closely linked to each other, due to the draw they played in earlier in the season. Assuming the Dogs and Demons do not draw then if either team wins and the other loses then the winner will finish second, and is through to the Grand Final. If they both win then it comes down to percentage, with the Giants having an advantage of about 20 points over the Crows. If they lose then they are out, as Brisbane overtakes them

• Brisbane has the unlikeliest path to the Grand Final. Apart from needing to win themselves in Sydney the Lions definitely need Adelaide to not beat Collingwood. As the Dogs and Demons play each other the Lions would then – a draw aside – catch up to one of them in terms of wins. But they would prefer Melbourne to lose because, as mentioned above, the Dogs have a much bigger advantage in terms of percentage.

 

Missing from this equation is the second-ranked team Collingwood. The Magpies have had an excellent past three weeks, comfortably beating Melbourne, and Brisbane away, and losing narrowly to the Bulldogs. Forwards Moana Hope and Christina Bernardi have been on fire, kicking five goals each over the past few weeks. But they have left their run too late after a poor start to the season, and are one of the few teams that will already – albeit with some optimism – have to start looking forward to next year.

AFL WOMEN’S Power Rankings: Round 5 2018

With two rounds to go in the 2018 AFL Women’s season one spot in the Grand Final is fairly set, while the other is up for grabs between four sides. In terms of the former the Western Bulldogs’ ranking points came down a touch this week – it was unlikely they would repeat last week’s amazing performance against Carlton – but they are still clearly the top-rated side, and a huge chance of taking out one of the top two positons. On the ladder itself the Dogs are one match and a huge chunk of percentage clear of any other team, meaning that one win and not getting thrashed in the other game themselves will see them in.     

As for the other spot the Brisbane Lions and Melbourne are the two teams most likely, both with three wins, putting them half a win above the GWS Giants and Adelaide Crows. Melbourne continued to be wasteful in front of goal on the weekend, but managed to get over the line against Brisbane to stay just behind their opponents on the standings. Arguably the rankings under-rate Melbourne a little given their midfield has been pretty good, and it’s mainly been their inaccuracy in front of goal that has dragged their scores down over the past few weeks. But of the two teams you would rate Brisbane as the more likely to make it through, with Brisbane having a home match against Collingwood next week, while Melbourne has to take on the Bulldogs in the final round (albeit a Dogs team that may have less incentive to go at their hardest due to already having sealed a Grand Final spot).

The Giants and Crows have weaker chances of making the final play-off, as they would likely need to win both their matches and hope that the teams above them fail at least once on the way home. The Crows have the easier draw, as they will be big favourites at home against Fremantle next week, and have last-placed Collingwood in the final round, although the Magpies’ performances over the past couple of weeks have been much closer to those of a top-ranked side. The Giants face both the Dogs and Lions, but they do at least get to play both sides at home. If the Demons, Giants, and Crows can all win next week – and at least two of those teams will be big favourites to do so – then we could be in for a very exciting final round.