Sportpunter

How much of a home ground advantage is there in an AFL Grand Final?

The reason why I ask is because the MCG is a happy hunting ground for Hawthorn whilst Fremantle have historically struggled there. The Hawks have won 8 of their last 10 matches on the MCG, as compared to Fremantle who have only won 3 of their last 15 matches at the venue.

But what makes a home ground advantage?

Well there has been a lot of research into this area. And whilst some might be a psychological advantage, there is also a degree of travel fatigue, as well as playing on a slightly different surface with different dimensions and altitudes.

But probably the biggest cause of home ground advantage would have to be crowd support. Fremantle showed this in their last match against Sydney last week. The crowd would have definitely spurred on a team. Furthermore, the umpires are easily biased by crowd support. Take a look at the free kick tally for west Australian teams at home against teams that travel interstate vs the opposite in Melbourne.

But is the grand final in AFL as crowd biased as a normal home and away match? No. Almost half the ground is made up of MCC and AFL memberships, which tend to be more unbiased to any team. A lot greater percentage of these members will be turning up to watch the ultimate game of the year and not shouting out their teams of choice. Then there are the corporates, who likewise are would neither support one team over the other.

As for the two teams playing. Unlike any other game, they are allocated equal amount of seats per team, and whilst any seats left over are more likely to be grabbed by a Victorian team, the difference in crowd support between both teams one would think is minimal.

From a personal experience, I thought there were more Sydney supporters at last years grand final than Hawthorn supporters.

But let’s look at the stats and see what they say. Since 1995 there have been 8 occasions where a Melbourne based team was playing an interstate team in the grand final. Of these only on two occasions have the Melbourne side won: in 2007 where Geelong thrashed Port Adelaide by 119 points, and in 1996 where North Melbourne defeated Sydney by 43 points. Three premierships from Brisbane, Two from Adelaide and one from Sydney make up the numbers.

If you look at all those matches, then my model which includes a home ground interstate travel factor in it, has the Melbourne based team to on average win by 13.3 points. But on those eight occasions since 1995, the average margin of victory for the Melbourne minus the margin of the interstate team is 0.125. Almost exactly zero. Perhaps this if anything is a good reason to believe that there is no home ground advantage in the AFL grand final.

Although this year, being a Hawthorn supporter, I wish there was.

Whilst the AFL are deliberating about what penalties to hand down to Essendon, there is talk about if Essendon should lose their premiership points and give up the year, so as not to lose draft picks the following years.

Personally I think they should lose points and draft picks, but if we let the stats do the talking, then it’s a no brainer that they should lose their points. At the moment our simulation rates Essendon only a 1% chance to win the premiership. Without James Hird as coach it seems extremely unlikely that they will be able to go all the way. So why not give up the points and have a better stab at it in years to come? If their percentrage chance was over 5%, like I rate the top 4 sides, then for sure, losing points may not be advantageous, but at 1%? It surely is.

And should they lose their points, this makes way for some of the other teams in the lower half of the competition.
Should Essendon lose all their premiership points in 2013, then my simulations give Carlton a 66.7% chance to make the finals. North Melbourne will have a 23.8% chance, Brisbane a 4.5% chance, Adelaide a 3.8% chance, and West Coast a 1.1% chance. West coast really have to thrash Adelaide and hope that Carlton, Brisbane and North lose. They also have to hope that Carlton get slaughtered against Port Adelaide.

As for premiership, I would be giving Carlton a 0.6% chance, and North Melbourne a 0.4% chance and Port Adelaide a 0.2% chance of getting the top prize.

Not much of course, but it’s still something. But perhaps a something that Essendon should give up.

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Sort my Points per minute, by salary, by $ per Point, by position or by dual position option.

We all know that pre season form matters, and this is the excel spreadsheet that will help you.

Excel spread sheet free to download here.

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You can’t get a better example than this. Western Bulldogs were coming into this match the big outsiders against the Hawks this Friday night at Ethiad Stadium. And why not? They had lost 11 games in a row at the end of the 2012 season, and Hawthorn, perceived as much to be the best team in the competition just lost the flag to the Swans.
So the bookies priced the dogs reasonably accurately (according to the (non-sportpunter) mugs that is) at 4.00 with the hawks strong favourites at 1.20. All the news was with the hawks. They were getting in some players back into their side.
Mitchell. Sewell. Lewis.
Big inclusions no doubt from their losses to Gold Coast and Brisbane the week before in the half game stoushes. But did anyone notice the outs? There were a whole list of them. Missing from the side were Rioli, Hodge, Birchall, Burgoyne, Lake, Shiels, Whitecross, Puopolo and a stack of others. Whilst the dogs? Well they realistically only had Higgins and Cooney out.
Cooney struggles to get on the park these days, and most western bulldogs fans would be generally surprised if he is in the side. Higgins is another injury prone player who last year didn’t really make a statement in the top 22 at the dogs. So basically the western bulldogs were at near full strength against a team who was missing about half their squad.

But don’t worry. Mitchell. Sewell. Lewis. All inclusions.

At least that’s what the press said.
The thing is, that the new Sportpunter player based model is so in tune with all the players, that it quite accurately rated the Western Bulldogs a 65% chance to win the game, and when they were ahead by three goals late in the first quarter, you could almost tell that the +27.5 line given to them was nearly bankable.
Did the bookies get it wrong? No. Every punter out there thought the hawks should destroy the dogs. But the sportpunter player based model got it right.
Dead right.
Despite the fact that the Sportputner AFL model has made over 13% ROI for the last 4 years straight including the biggest win ever last year……there’s only more reason to be more excited this year.
The Sportpunter AFL model has gone from being right to dead right.
And that’s a dead cert.
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