WheeloRatings

Here are a couple of records for consecutive wins to start a season.

Yes and yes. Melbourne's biggest wins v West Coast 74 - 2022, Optus Stadium 70 - 2000, Subiaco 61 - 1987, MCG 61 - 2000, Colonial Stadium (Marvel Stadium) West Coast's lowest scores in Western Australia 5.8.38 v Melbourne - 2022, Optus Stadium 6.5.41 v Geelong - 2013, Subiaco 6.6.42 v Richmond - 2014, Subiaco 5.13.43 v Adelaide - 2013, Subiaco West Coast's lowest scores v Melbourne 5.8.38 - 2022, Optus Stadium 5.15.45 - 2008, MCG 9.7.61 - 1990, MCG 9.9.63 - 2021, Optus Stadium

Here are Melbourne's expected margin and win percentage for each game based on my model. Melbourne are favourites in all but the last game against Brisbane at this stage. The 3.6 losses is based on the win probability for each match - so a 50-50 game is counted as 0.5 wins and 0.5 losses. By the way, Melbourne's probability of winning all 22 games is 3.8%! 😁

Yeah I have them at 12.4 and 11.0. https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_simulations.html There's definitely a gap opening up, but having said that, this time last year I had Richmond at 12.8 wins and a 68% chance of top 8 and GWS at 10.9 wins and a 38% chance of top 8.

Based on my simulations, 12 wins (& 0 draws) gives you about a 54% chance of making the top 8 and would likely then come down to percentage. 48 points and a percentage of 106 is roughly 50-50 to make the top 8.

In simple terms, the attack metric is based on whether teams score above or below average and the defence metric is based on whether teams concede above or below average. Instead of using a team's actual score, their score is calculated using a weighted average of their actual score and the score they would have kicked had they kicked at an expected accuracy. So a team that scores 9.22.76 (like Melbourne did against Richmond) will be credited with a much higher score than 76. I don't have Melbourne's adjusted score at hand, but the adjusted margin was 60 points instead of 22 which better reflects their dominance. The attack and defence metrics are updated following each match based on these "adjusted" scores compared to the expected scores. If a team's adjusted score is higher than expected, their attack rating increases (and vice versa). If their opponent's adjusted score is higher than expected, their defensive rating decreases (and vice versa). I have an unfinished page on my site which provides some more detail: https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_methodology.html In addition, teams carry over ~65% of their rating from the previous year so Melbourne's overall rating dropped from 32.1 at the end of 2021 to 20.5 at the beginning of 2022. FYI, this is Melbourne's rating progression since round 22 last year which shows Melbourne's rating is almost back to the pre-Grand Final level. Let me know if you need any additional information!

I haven't omitted the NT games, they're included in the neutral state games. Maybe the AFL has taken it into account. On the face of it, it would appear that Melbourne hasn't really been negatively impacted by selling home games. I wasn't proposing a solution to the fixture, I was merely stating that ladder positions are not necessarily a true reflection of a team's quality over a season, given the inequalities in the fixture, and there isn't a linear relationship either. I was just acknowledging @Sydney_Demon comment that you can't simply look at ladder positions to determine overall difficulty of team's fixture.

Haha yes, I definitely don't want to tell the AFL! Their game in 2015 was cancelled after Phil Walsh's death: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-03/afl-phil-walsh-gillon-mclachlan-adelaide-crows-geelong/6593282

I completely agree with the points you made here and in your other responses. The AFL cannot base the fixture on expected performance. In relation to the average ladder positions of opponents as a measure of fixture difficulty, I agree that it would be improved by looking at the comparison to the average if they played everyone. I also agree that playing 6 & 10 is not equivalent to playing 3 & 13. I didn't want to suggest that this was in any way an accurate measure of fixture difficulty. There are sophisticated models of "strength of schedule" which take into account the actual quality of opponent and, as importantly, where the match is played. Given the uneven fixture, ladder positions are definitely not an accurate measure of team strength. Also, there isn't a linear relationship between team quality and ladder position. This year, the difference between 16th and 17th might be equivalent to the difference between 10th and 16th. In relation to Melbourne benefitting in the past, we have played fewer away state games in our opponent's home state than any other team since 2008. Matches from 2008 to 2022 by location, excluding 2020 Away state matches in opponent's home state from 2008 to 2022 by state, excluding 2020

It potentially increases the chances of a team "tanking" in round 17. Lose this game and play the last five games against teams below you, or win this game and play the last five games against the best five teams. I'd almost want to see a conference system in place for the last five rounds if that approach was adopted - e.g. the last five rounds are used to rank teams within each group of six teams, but the top 6 teams are set after round 17 and 7-12 can play off for the last two spots. Alternatively, each team's last five games could be played against teams around them on the ladder but without specifically grouping teams into blocks. E.g. Top plays teams 2-6, 2nd plays against five of teams 1-7, 3rd plays against five of teams 1-8, etc. It can be random but within certain constraints like teams 4-15 need to play at least two teams above them and two teams below them. Regardless, I agree that the draw/fixture could definitely be improved and Geelong should not be playing four games against the likely 17 & 18!

I guess the issue with that approach (i.e. top 6 playing each other, 7-12 and 13-18 likewise) is that 6th gets a really tough final five rounds and much tougher than the teams in the next group. If 6th is a game ahead of 9th after 17 rounds, they could easily miss finals due to the much tougher final five rounds.

For what it's worth, here are the average ladder positions for each team's opponents this year, based on (a) last year's ladder position and (b) this year's projected ladder positions from https://squiggle.com.au/ladder/ Of course, ladder position isn't an authoritative ranking of team strength as teams may finish higher because they have an easier fixture and lower because of a harder fixture.

Here are the number of matches each team plays against each other based on last year's final ladder position. Geelong, Adelaide and Gold Coast are the three teams to play both West Coast and North Melbourne twice this year but I don't think the AFL can really base the fixture on how they think certain teams will perform.

Just an update on Richard Little's analysis. A lot of that analysis relied on access to the API behind the AFL app's "AR Tracker" which gave you access to the location of every possession, disposal, along with many other stats. It may be a coincidence (but probably not), but The West Australian ran an article last Friday morning with some of the data from the API and by Friday night the API was returning a 403 Forbidden response! It may not be possible to undertake that level of analysis any longer which is such a shame.

Yes, last year we were 1st in tackles and 1st in tackles inside 50, this year 16th and =4th. Here are the average tackles per match this year compared to last year (values in brackets are the number matches played): Player stats: https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_stats.html Team stats: https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_stats_team.html

Richard Little (https://twitter.com/alittlefitness) has been posting some interesting match previews and reviews on Twitter looking at stats which aren't typically reported, and trying to summarise each team's game style. Here is the preview for Melbourne v St Kilda but he has posted previews for all games this round.

First time poster here. For anyone interested, I have set up a website where I publish a wide variety of AFL stats for the last couple of seasons (among other things). @binman suggested I post the links to my site on this thread, which looks like a great read. Team Stats https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_stats_team.html Player Stats https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_stats.html