2011 Round 27 Results: The Cats Get Served Another Bird


It was a close-run thing as far as the Pies are concerned, but we've wound up with the Grand Final that the pundits and the MARS Ratings have been suggesting we'd have for some time.

It was a close-run thing as far as the Pies are concerned, but we've wound up with the Grand Final that the pundits and the MARS Ratings have been suggesting we'd have for some time.
By combining the Flag prices we're seeing on the TAB for the four teams with the prices for each of the four possible Grand Final pairings that we're also seeing there, and by assuming that the overround embedded in each price within a market is the same, we can mathematically derive the probabilities that the TAB bookmaker must logically hold for every possible GF result.
Investors have a little more at stake in this Round. To collect, we'll need the Pies to beat the Hawks by 4 goals or more, which would be enough to land our lone line wager and boost the Portfolio price by just under 2c. Should the Pies fail to provide this outcome Portfolios will instead fall by just over 2c. The Cats and the Eagles can do as they please - at least as far as the Funds are concerned.
The Hawks' grabbed just over 2 Ratings Points from Sydney on the back of their 6-goal victory, while the Eagles snared just half a Ratings Point from the Blues, leaving team order unchanged on the MARS Ladder.
Carlton look set to finish the season as the fourth-highest ranked team, comfortably ahead of the Eagles. It's a moot point, but I do wonder whether the Blues might have progressed further had the draw been kinder to them and they'd consequently finished fourth rather than fifth, thereby avoiding the trip to Western Australia.
Anyway, they'll start next year with a MARS rating well above 1,000.
The semi-final dominance of teams finishing with the double-chance continued this week, but not before the Blues came within an umpire's decision - a 50:50 one to be fair - of becoming only the 3rd team in the last 12 seasons to advance to a Prelim from outside the top 4 spots.