Learnings are all the rage on a Monday in the world of footy and we’ve put together what a Punter should take out of it in our award-winning* blog – 5 Lessons Learned.
It’s like a multi where all the legs are nothing but hindsight.
Let’s rip into it.
(1) The ONLY ladder predictor that matters
We had a great response to our top-8 according to our futures market last week.
Fair to say, it can save you all the time and effort on the AFL ladder predictor along with your own weird algorithms when you can just look at the futures market and it shall give you the answers you seek.
PREDICTED AFL LADDER ACCORDING TO LADBROKES FINAL 8 FUTURES MARKET
- Collingwood
- Port Adelaide
- Brisbane
- Melbourne
- Western Bulldogs ($1.15)
- Geelong ($1.28)
- Carlton ($1.90)
- GWS ($2.10)
- Essendon ($2.50)
- St Kilda ($2.60)
- Richmond ($3)
- Sydney ($4.50)
- Adelaide ($7.50)
- Gold Coast ($19)
- Fremantle
- Hawthorn
- North Melbourne
- West Coast
The major change is that the biggest disappointment from the season, Freo, is officially out of top 8 betting with the Gold Coast Suns being the Lloyd Christmas in this situation.
GWS still remains the best value bet at $2.10 to make the eight in this author’s humble opinion.
(2) Crows Season on the Line
It was another close one against a top-ranked team for the Crows against the Dees at the MCG yesterday, however any punters who took Adelaide at the line (+23.5) would be pleased.
Adelaide’s 4-point loss to Melbourne is now the ninth out of ten matches where the Crows have covered the line against opponents ranked higher than them on the ladder.
The 13th on the ladder Crows head into Saturday night’s Showdown against Port (2nd on the ladder) $3.10 underdogs and +18.5 on the line.
(3) If they’re behind, then never mind
Those punters who took Richmond by 1-39, tribet or under 25 points of late will be very happy with Andrew McQualter’s reign as caretaker coach at Punt Road.
Saturday’s thrilling one-point win over Hawthorn was Richmond’s equal third-best last-quarter comeback in the club’s AFL/VFL history and it was their equal-best final-quarter fightback in more than 50 years.
Since Dimma called it a day, Richmond lives up to those famous lines in their iconic theme song “if we’re behind, then never mind, we’ll fight and fight and win” with the Tigers record in close ones being second to none in the post Hardwick era.
Richmond face a big few weeks with Melbourne, the Western Bulldogs, and St Kilda coming up – two of those at Marvel Stadium for if the Tigers were to win those the Dimma curse would truly be broken.
Andrew McQualter is currently the $1.90 favorite in our market to take the top job at Punt Road on a permeant basis.
(4) Is there anything Collingwood can’t do?
…win the premiership.
If Collingwood doesn’t win the flag this year, all these magical final-quarter comebacks we see week after week after week will be a bit of a letdown.
The Magpies just keep finding a way to win, no matter what is in front of them.
If anything, Collingwood belting a team and leading all day is more of a story than Craig McRae’s men staging a last-quarter epic comeback – it’s like we’ve come to expect it.
Surely the 2023 Grand Final is Collingwood’s to lose, however, history suggests it would be on brand.
(5) North and West Coast are Due
So the Eagles got belted and North had victory stolen from them on the weekend.
No game is worthy of Sunday 4:40 pm (eastern time) than the Eagles v Kangaroos at Optus Stadium in this upcoming round.
This will be a fascinating market to watch during the week, when at the time of publishing this blog, North is currently $1.86 favourite with the Eagles’ $1.96 underdogs and a line of -1.5
Harley Reid will be watching this clash in anticipation.
Quite frankly, I’ll take the $51 for the draw at this stage.