Round 18 is done and dusted and North Melbourne did just about enough this weekend to secure the final spot in the eight, though the door is slightly ajar for St Kilda after their upset victory over the Western Bulldogs and Port Adelaide’s loss to Greater Western Sydney. The Saints are now a 14% chance of taking that last place while the Kangaroos are an 84% chance.

That’s the view from the latest statistical simulations using the methodology which, simply put, combines offensive and defensive ratings of all 18 teams along with an assessment of how well each team plays at every ground to simulate the remainder of the home-and-away season and the finals. This simulation has been performed 10,000 times and the results are summarised here.

Illustration: Tony Corke

GWS and Geelong did a great deal for their own top four hopes this weekend, increasing them to an 83% chance in the case of the Cats and to 67% for the Giants. These gains came mostly at the expense of Sydney and the Bulldogs, whose top four chances have now fallen to 52% and 15%, respectively.



The complete profile of every team’s possible ladder finishes at the end of the home-and-away season appears in the chart below.

Illustration: Tony Corke

As the season progresses, each team’s menu of possible finishes tends to shrink, and we find now that each team has, at most, four ladder spots that span the range of its opportunities. For some teams, such as Brisbane, Essendon and Fremantle, the range is even narrower.



If you prefer your data numeric, here’s the same chart as a heat-map, which shows even more clearly how most teams are now homing in on a handful of ladder finishes.

Illustration: Tony Corke

Top twos, fours and so on

A Hawthorn-Geelong one-two finish at the end of the home-and-away season is now the most likely, that combination cropping up in almost one-quarter of the simulation replicates. Next most likely is a Hawthorn-Adelaide finish, which has an estimated probability of 20%

Combined, the 10 most-likely one-two finishes now account for over 80% of all replicates, with Hawthorn appearing in six of them, Adelaide and Geelong in five, GWS in three, and Sydney in one.

Illustration: Tony Corke

Moving next to top fours, we find that Hawthorn appears first place in all of them, and Geelong in second in half of them. Adelaide comes second in three of them, and GWS in the remaining two. Sydney appears no higher than third, and does that in only one of the top 10 combinations, finishing fourth in three more.



No combination, however, appears in more than about 6% of replicates, so there are a lot of feasible possibilities not listed here.

Illustration: Tony Corke

The Kangaroos finish in eighth place in all but one of the top 10 combinations for positions fifth through to eighth, and snag seventh in one other. West Coast finishes in sixth in three of the combinations, seventh on six more, and in eighth in another. Sydney finishes in fifth in three of the entries, and in sixth in one more

Note also that no combination shown here appears in more than 7.5% of replicates so, again, there are many feasible combinations not shown here.

Illustration: Tony Corke

Projecting the finals after round 18

What about last week’s results and how they have affected the flag prospects of the teams in contention?

Illustration: Tony Corke

Adelaide are favourites for the flag (though they’re in sixth place on the ladder and flying under the radar), winning it about 31% of the time (and losing it another 26%), ahead of Geelong who win it 24% of the time (and lose it 18% of the time) and Hawthorn who win it 22% of the time (and lose it 19%).

Hawthorn, Geelong and GWS are also assessed as being most likely to go out in a preliminary final, Sydney and the Western Bulldogs in a semi-final, and West Coast and the Kangaroos in an elimination final. A breakdown of these results in terms of where a team finished at the end of the home-and-away season in the relevant simulation replicate, appears in the chart below.

Illustration: Tony Corke

Looking more closely at the simulation replicates, we find that the most likely grand final sees Adelaide meet Geelong (18%), or Adelaide meet Hawthorn (17%). Other common pairings are GWS v Adelaide (11%) and Hawthorn v Geelong (10%).

