So, that’s the winter sports all wrapped up for the year – at least in theory.
We saw Richmond triumphant in a game that saw them break down Adelaide’s vaunted attack while keeping up their own end. In particular, Dustin Martin had a fine game to sweep the treble of the Norm Smith, although like many I thought Bachar Houli might been a bit stiff missing out on that as he and Alex Rance did much to blunt the Crows’ path to goal. It was quite telling that when Martin turned up to the post conference he bore only the premiership medallion. Too much bling is gauche.
(As for the conspiracy theory that somehow Adelaide were stiffed by… something to do with umpiring or the higher gravity in Victoria or what, maybe if they hadn’t lost by eight goals, there might be grounds to establish an argument.)
Of course after Footy Christmas came Footy Boxing Day, with the Melbourne Storm just basically crushing the North Qld Cowboys, as seemed to be expected. A bit dull to watch but a nice send off for Cronk, Cam Smith and Slater. Also completing the Swan Street double after the Tigers’ incredible triumph sent that part of Melbourne into raptures – and without any overturned, burned out cars! Good work!
As far as GRAFT goes, I’ve decided to keep myself busy over summer by keeping track of the A-League which kicks off this weekend. The GRAFT system that I use for AFL doesn’t work so well for association football so I’ll be running off everyone’s favourite ranking algorithm as devised by Arpad Elo. I’m unlikely to bring too many enhancements beyond the off-the-shelf formula, although I do want to work out a method to track attacking/defensive alignment along the way. As such, the ratings for this season will be a work in progress as I tune things along the way. So it’ll be in alpha phase for this season.
I also have a bit of homework to do over summer as far as the AFL ratings go, mostly where it comes to projections and that. As I tweeted a while ago, the random algorithm I use for the Monte Carlo sims needs to reflect actual scoring distributions more closely so that’s going on the to-do list.