The Race for the Flag in Squiggly Lines – Round 18, 2016

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Animated!

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Another excellent week for Hawthorn, and they’ve also regained top position on Flagpole. I could have built up to that but I decided it was best to just rip off the band-aid. I mean, I actually like Hawthorn and I still feel my gag reflex engage at the idea of another Hawks premiership. Hawthorn and Richmond started their rebuilds at the same time, did you know that? We snagged a smart, proven coach in Terry Wallace and they got some no-name teacher. When I think about that I just laugh and laugh until I black out.

Anyway, it was also a great week for the Cats, who had to beat Adelaide to make top 2. And for GWS, who secured an important interstate victory over Port.

That’s almost certainly enough to close the door on Port’s finals chances. And speaking of bad weeks, it was a shocker for the Bulldogs, who needed to close the gap to the top sides and did the opposite, losing to St. Kilda, and collecting another couple of horrible injuries for good measure.

Dishonourable victories for West Coast and Sydney, who both squeaked home against weaker interstate sides in Melbourne and Carlton.

Also Brisbane re-entered the chart! Welcome back.

Ladder Predictor! It’s grim reading:

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Last week I mentioned I was going to think about how to present ladder predictions. Here is one way! Check out this TOWER OF POWER:

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The idea here is to show the likelihood of each finishing position. Brisbane are very likely to finish 17th, so they fill almost all of that space, plus some chance of either 16th or 18th, and that’s about it. Sydney, on the other hand, can reasonably finish anywhere in the top 7. Richmond will not finish 9th.

This needs a bit of work, but lemme know what you think, like whether it makes intuitive sense or is like the product of a deranged child’s nightmares.

Flagpole! Well, here it is. The Hawk/Crow/Eagle triumvirate remains in force, but the gaps have closed up again. The Cats made good gains, but their inconsistency this year means they’re still some distance off the top.