AFLM Predictions – Round 1, 2020

It’s that time of year again, with everyone gearing up to see the start of the new AFLM season. Nothing, not even global pandemics, is set to get in the AFL’s way, as we’re set for a season full of twists, turns, and tips. Richmond are gunning to defend their title and enter themselves into ‘dynasty’ discussions, Geelong are looking to fight back after their spectacular late fadeout, and any number of teams are looking to bust into the finals like Brisbane did last year. And we’ll be here to try and predict it all.

AFLW Predictions – Round 1, 2020

As part of the AFL’s quest for cultural dominance, and a general belief that this is just a curtainraiser for the ‘real’ footy, the AFLW season is teeing off tonight, far too early in February. The fans are excited, the media has been giving it enough coverage to make sure people are aware it’s happening, and the finest female footballers in the country are strapping their boots on, ready to give it a shake. As are we with our predictions – and we had a lot to do over the off season.

AFLM Predictions – Round 5, 2020

There’s never a dull day on the calendar during football season, and this week’s proven to be no different – new restrictions from the Queensland and South Australian governments forced the AFL into making late changes to the week’s fixture (and trigger lengthy arguments about where exactly Melbourne ends), causing headaches for both their fixturers and the statisticians working on everything around it.

AFLM Predictions – Round 4, 2020

We were given an uncomfortable reminder of a dark chapter of football last week, with a controversy about whether or not an Essendon player had tested positive to something that they’d rather not. Regardless, their game against Melbourne was postponed indefinitely, giving us an eight-game matchweek to play with.

AFLM Predictions – Round 3, 2020

Everyone was a little rusty when it came to getting back to the football. And, while a 36-36 draw to (re)open the season didn’t fill everyone with enthusiasm^[1], the rest of the round bought a few good games and upset results to keep everyone on their toes and open the season up widely.

AFLM Predictions – Round 2, 2020

It’s been a confusing and somewhat scary two months, but the AFL is attempting to go some way back towards normality by providing Sports Product™ to entertain us all. They’ve made the (possibly foolish)^[1] decision to stack Round 2 with blockbuster games like Richmond vs Collingwood, Geelong vs Hawthorn, and a Showdown, and there’s a fair chance that they’ll all be pretty close.

AFLM Ladder Dominance Streaks

What’s the most consecutive years where one team has finished above another on the AFLM ladder?

For most football fans, there’s a certain inevitability about getting drawn into arguments with your friends about which team is better. Often it’s based around intangible measurements, but sometimes you can try and bring statistics to the table to assert dominance. (In fact, that’s basically the entire reason why I started doing football stats.)

AFLW Predictions – Semi-Finals, 2020

While the COVID-19 outbreak has lopped two weeks off the end of the AFLW season (thus denying Richmond the opportunity to get their first victory), there was an unexpected success that the AFLW players managed to bargain for themselves – the top four from each conference got to jump through into the finals, rather than the top three.

AFLW Predictions – Round 6, 2020

Even with certain global pandemics that threaten to disrupt the balance of everyday life as we know it, the AFLW season is attempting to march on – despite Richmond being a player down, Lauren Tesoreiro self-isolating after a flatmate returned from Japan. There’s not too long left in the year, though, so we might get through it clearly (the men’s competition is another matter).

We’ve joined Squiggle!

Hey everyone, big news here (that I mentioned earlier): The Flag has been initiated into the hallowed ranks of Squiggle! Founded by author, programmer, and all-round genius Max Barry, the site has been aggregating the best of the AFL prediction bunch since 2017. All the big names are here – Matter of Stats, GRAFT, Footy Maths, Ranking Software, PlusSixOne – and now little old us.

Take a look at the placeholder logo we’ve got there…

Just pushing this one out quietly because it’s not a proper, in-depth post – but it’s something that needs to be done. This here’s just a simple table of all the match predictions for the 2020 AFLM season, so that it can be analysed and exported in a simple machine-readable format. Full credit for formatting goes to GRAFT Ratings.

As for why we’re doing this? Something very cool coming soon…

A CSV table link is available here.