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.
Continue reading “AFLM Predictions – Round 1, 2020”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.
Continue reading “AFLW Predictions – Round 1, 2020”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.)
Continue reading “AFLM Ladder Dominance Streaks”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.
Continue reading “AFLW Predictions – Semi-Finals, 2020”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).
Continue reading “AFLW Predictions – Round 6, 2020”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.
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…
AFLW Predictions – Round 5, 2020
We’re into the second half of the season now (and some big news could be coming soon for the blog and our tips), which helps our predictions out: now that every team’s played more than three games, the form adjustments won’t be overreacting and flying all over the place. Only seven teams shifted their ranking after the last weekend, as opposed to almost everyone in the previous weeks – and even with that, the jumps were smaller. The average ratings change was just 2.34 points, as opposed to the 6.74 it had been between rounds 3 and 4.
