Three years at the top - how many Premierships is par?

[Fadge]

With all the current talk about Geelong and Melbourne Storm underachieving this year because neither of them won the Premiership even though they were both the standout teams during their respective home and away seasons, I started to think about how often a team should expect to win a Premiership when they start the finals series as Top Dog.

I then cast my mind to recent AFL history, and thought about the last two teams to have finished top of the ladder for three consecutive years:
Essendon 1999, 2000 and 2001 - 1 Premiership from 2 Grand Final appearances;
Port Adelaide 2002, 2003, 2004 - 1 Premiership from 1 Grand Final appearance;

I propose the following:
Zero Premierships is Underachieving;
One Premiership is Par;
Two Premierships is Overachieving;
Three Premierships is a ridiculously amazing achievement, which I doubt I will see in my lifetime (remember Brisbane didn't finish top once during their threepeat and only went into one of their winning Grand Finals as favourites);

Mathematics to support this conclusion are as follows:
1. The team that finishes first will make the Preliminary Final 90% of the time (the percentage figure under the current finals system is actually lower than that, so this may be an overestimation);
2. Once in the Preliminary Final, the top team will win approximately 75% of the time (they will usually go in favourite unless they have limped into the finals, and usually have a home ground advantage);
3. Once in the Grand Final, they will win that 65% of the time;

0.90 X 0.75 X 0.65 = 0.44

Hence, the approximate probability of the top team at the end of the Home and Away season winning the Premiership is 44%. Three consecutive cracks with a .44 probability gives the median number of premierships as 1.32. Again, this number is probably overstating things, as since the current finals system was introduced in 2000, only 3 teams from 9 that have finished top of the ladder at the end of the H&A season have gone on to win the Premiership (Ess 2000, WC 2006 and Geelong 2007).

No doubt there are better mathematicians out there than I, so interested to hear your thoughts.

 

[HODGE2SEWELL]

seems all correct to me but to tell you the truth

numbers mean nothing anything can happen in football at anytime at anywhere

sure most of the time numbers work but most of those numbers and percentages are aslo just common sense

and if numbers were true you would be saying hawks ar most likey to not win another premiership until they fall down then rise again

and with buddy (21) roughy (21) hodge (24) and most of our players under 25 i really cant see hawks not getting the medal again in the next 5 years

 

[Beau_Waters for PM]

Interesting.

 

[AshtrayBroom]

Funnily enough I was gonna throw out a figure of 1.3 before I saw your figures. Seems pretty fair for a typical scenario but surely you'd need to make adjustments in the event of a loss in the Qualifying Final. Used to know probabilities better when I studied it but it's been a while. Although every year will be unique some averaged winrates since the new finals system came in would give a decent estimation.

 

[fishbowl]

Par would mean 3.

 

[scarecrow2k1]

seems all correct to me but to tell you the truth

numbers mean nothing anything can happen in football at anytime at anywhere

sure most of the time numbers work but most of those numbers and percentages are aslo just common sense

and if numbers were true you would be saying hawks ar most likey to not win another premiership until they fall down then rise again

and with buddy (21) roughy (21) hodge (24) and most of our players under 25 i really cant see hawks not getting the medal again in the next 5 years

Things change fast in football. People thought the same about WCE 2 years ago

 

[morph]

Looking at the last nine AFL Seasons (since 2000) and it shows the Home & Away team;
1st place = 4 premierships (0.444)
2nd = 3 premierships (0.333)
3rd = 2 premierships (0.222)

Brisbane's 3 consecutive premierships is indeed extraordinary as they never finished H&A in 1st place, not to mention reaching a 4th consecutive GF after finishing H&A 2nd in 2004. Well exceeds Par, and some!

Port Adelaide on the other hand finished H&A 1st for 3 consecutive years yet won only 1 premiership. Below Par.

Also interesting is that over those 9 years most teams have a "window" of about 6 years (either in, or just out of the top 8) before plunging to the lowly depths of the ladder. Hawks won their premiership in their 2nd year of finals - as I believe Brisbane did in 2001.

 

[SunKing]

Things change fast in football. People thought the same about WCE 2 years ago

People never learn do they.

 

[Rockford]

Mathematics to support this conclusion are as follows:
1. The team that finishes first will make the Preliminary Final 90% of the time (the percentage figure under the current finals system is actually lower than that, so this may be an overestimation);
2. Once in the Preliminary Final, the top team will win approximately 75% of the time (they will usually go in favourite unless they have limped into the finals, and usually have a home ground advantage);
3. Once in the Grand Final, they will win that 65% of the time;

0.90 X 0.75 X 0.65 = 0.44

Hence, the approximate probability of the top team at the end of the Home and Away season winning the Premiership is 44%. Three consecutive cracks with a .44 probability gives the median number of premierships as 1.32. Again, this number is probably overstating things, as since the current finals system was introduced in 2000, only 3 teams from 9 that have finished top of the ladder at the end of the H&A season have gone on to win the Premiership (Ess 2000, WC 2006 and Geelong 2007).

No doubt there are better mathematicians out there than I, so interested to hear your thoughts.

Are the figures used in this: 0.90 X 0.75 X 0.65 = 0.44 taken from historical data?

1.32 feels about right. Winning 1 Premiership in 3 years of dominance doesn't feel like par to me (I'd be disappointed). But yeah, 2 Flags would be special

 

[Off The Couch]

At this time of the night my brain turned to mush trying to get my head around probabilities.

I do know this, footy is a fickle thing where on any given day any given thing can happen and all the probabilities in the world isn't going to change that.

BUT

1 premiership is great but I would be oh so disappointed if that was the only one in the next five years given where we are at, at the moment.

But as WCE supporters say on a regular basis "that's what they said about us".

 

[morph]

As a Carlton supporter I can quite confidently say that the last 7 years of 0 Premierships & 3 Wooden Spoons is below par!

Non Carlton supporters may disagree. You'd have preferred us to have more spoons!

 

[scotty13]

With all the current talk about Geelong and Melbourne Storm underachieving this year because neither of them won the Premiership even though they were both the standout teams during their respective home and away seasons

Melbourne actually finished on 17 wins for the season along with Manly and Cronulla. They only finished 1st on the ladder due to percentage/points scores (whatever the NRL uses to seperate teams) so they were really the standout team of the year and the eventual premiers (Manly) won just as many games as what Melbourne did (or actually more if finals is included?)

Still I get to point of the post and as some said...1 flag just doesnt seem enough but 2 would be a surprise, and 3/3 well that would be increadible.

 

[Altum Volantes]

Things change fast in football. People thought the same about WCE 2 years ago

It's all good, there are no drug users at Hawthorn.

 

[Masten2McKinley]

i agree one premiership is PAR, although i still belive Port under achived

 

[greennick]

It's all good, there are no drug users at Hawthorn.

I think this symbol would have been more appropriate:

 

[Waspy79]

i agree one premiership is PAR, although i still belive Port under achived

I agree however what it may also highlight is that the current top 8 format is floored because the team that finished first at the end of the home and away season gets as many chances to win a game to play in a grand final as 3 other teams who finished below them. The reward for finishing first is not great enough.

 

[Beau_Waters for PM]

The problem is that the difference between one and two premierships is so great.

For a team to be on top for three consecutive seasons and only go on to win one premiership seems like a big disappointment. I'm sure supporters would be gutted.

Therefore I would say two premierships is par for a team in that situation.

 

[krudmonk]

Considering the level of home-away dominance from both those teams, I'd say 2 is par. They both flopped this year. Perhaps that's just a recency bias, though.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

1 premiership is good, irrespective of how many years you've been "top". Take nothing for granted, premierships have to be earned, as the Hawks showed this year, and every premier prior to that.

I can't believe in all these years, people still believe in hot favourites in Grand Finals .. how naive is that???!!!

 

[Fadge]

Are the figures used in this: 0.90 X 0.75 X 0.65 = 0.44 taken from historical data?

I have used historical data as a basis but adjusted by gut feel based on the fact 9 years of data is insufficient to dictate long(ish) term probability.

If the figures were based on historical data alone, the number would be a lot closer to 1.00

 

[azyboy]

Melbourne actually finished on 17 wins for the season along with Manly and Cronulla. They only finished 1st on the ladder due to percentage/points scores (whatever the NRL uses to seperate teams) so they were really the standout team of the year and the eventual premiers (Manly) won just as many games as what Melbourne did (or actually more if finals is included?)

Still I get to point of the post and as some said...1 flag just doesnt seem enough but 2 would be a surprise, and 3/3 well that would be increadible.

Yes, but the Storm also lost 3 games while the majority of their squad was involved with origin. I believe 9-10 of their starting 13 were involved so they were still perceived to be the dominant side.

Agree with Adelaide Hawk. They're bloody hard to win. Look at St Kilda and the list they've had.

 

[Fadge]

Melbourne actually finished on 17 wins for the season along with Manly and Cronulla. They only finished 1st on the ladder due to percentage/points scores (whatever the NRL uses to seperate teams) so they were really the standout team of the year and the eventual premiers (Manly) won just as many games as what Melbourne did (or actually more if finals is included?)

Still I get to point of the post and as some said...1 flag just doesnt seem enough but 2 would be a surprise, and 3/3 well that would be increadible.

I guess I was taking into account the fact that three of Melbourne's losses occurred during the State of Origin series, where they had a dozen or so players representing their states and therefore being unavailable during that period. I'm not that close a follower of NRL, but from what I understand outside of that they were the dominant team of the H&A season.

(Azyboy appears to have beaten me to it...)

 

[Fadge]

Considering the level of home-away dominance from both those teams, I'd say 2 is par. They both flopped this year. Perhaps that's just a recency bias, though.

Yes, recency is a very big thing. Take a look at Geelong's perfomances during 2007 and 2008 - they were far from the competition's most dominant team at the completion of round five 2007, but they put it all together and dominated the remainder of the year to win the flag. In saying that they were one kick away from not even playing in a Grand Final.

2008 also saw a slow start to the season, with positive self belief combined with negative self belief of their opponents getting them over the line in three or four of their early games. Had they have gone into the finals series with 17 or 18 wins instead of 21, their record would not have appeared as dominant, and would have had Hawthorn and the Bulldogs breathing down their necks. And they obviously weren't the best team during the finals series.

So with some straight kicking in the second quarter of this year's Grand Final, scoreboard pressure could have led to a very different result and they'd have had two flags to their name. Conversely, an extra 30 seconds of play in the 2007 Preliminary Final (remember the ball was loose in Collingwood's forward line when the siren sounded) and they could have had none.

It's a fickle sport this game of ours...

That leads me to believe that one Premiership for Geelong over the past two years' performances seems about right - Should they have another 19 or 20 win season next year, people will be saying they've grossly underachieved when their par would be sitting at about 1.4 Premierships for the three year period. Unfortunately, you can't win 0.4 of a Premiership!

 

[andrewmac]

bit hard to turn footy into mathematics i reckon....

Gut feel tells me Port underperformed, Essendon got ahead of themselves and lost a GF they should have won, and Brisbane were a very very good side that would have won in 04 without injuries.

West Coast were an awesome side that would still be wining premierships if the AFL had allowed them to continue cheating.

Another way to look at it is that with the current finals set up, the top 2 have equal chance to win, and i reckon in the last 15 years i think Adelaide 97-98 and 1 of Brisbanes were from 3rd or 4th and Sydneys might also have been from 3rd or 4th.

Overall if you don't finish 1 or 2, the finals are only there for big crowds and big revenue for the AFL.... but i still go and love it

 

[andrewmac]

It's all good, there are no drug users at Hawthorn.

Your kidding yourself......