Elo Predicts

Congratulations to the West Coast Eagles on their thrilling victory over Collingwood to close out the 2018 Season! Starting this Elo rating project has provided me with a new insight into team performance, and I hope the same for the readers of this blog. The rating system predicted 4 out of 9 finals, including correctly predicting the winner of the Grand Final. This is a lot lower than I would like, so there is room for improvement in the offseason. Like the BBL ratings I found that home ground advantage doesn't necessarily apply in the AFL, especially as West Coast were technically the home team (as they finished higher up the ladder) on Saturday but the game was played at Collingwood's home ground. Another change may be to move to an adjusted rating system similar to the BBL, where the rating is adjusted before the game to take into account the ground, rest days and other conditions. This would help I think in situations like the West Coast v Melbourne game where Melbourne...

The first week of the finals delivered. Elo correctly predicted 50% of the games, and two of those predictions were a less than 55% chance to win so this is acceptable although 3 from 4 would have been preferable. The finals series is shaping up. Richmond still look the dominant team, and with a rating of 1684 they deserve the tag of favourite.