Hawthorn topping the AFL ladder heading into round 16 feels like it should offer some reassurance in a week of uncertainty. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, and all that. Only, seeing the Hawks – the bruised, old, written-off Hawks – in top spot in a season in which they’ve failed to attract many positive headlines, feels as peculiar as anything else going on right now.
It feels odd in part because we’re terrible at predicting the future; people in general I mean, not specifically football fans. We’ve spent so long conditioning ourselves to Hawthorn’s inevitable decline it’s disconcerting the ladder isn’t playing along.
The tone was set pre-season. The combined predictions of 61 experts listed on AFL.com, Fox Footy and the Herald Sun resulted in just 17 tipping Hawthorn for the flag. West Coast were the consensus pick (and for full disclosure, mine too). Since then, be it for reasons of form or fitness, we’ve seen enough to confirm our bias that the Hawks are not the powerhouse of recent vintage. They could be two games clear after Thursday’s trip to Port Adelaide.
Philip Tetlock wrote the book on predicting world events. He called it ‘Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction’. Over his career Tetlock has crowdsourced millions of predictions in a bid to understand what makes an accurate forecaster. Some of his findings are relevant to the past week, not least that most engaged forecasters tend to only be slightly more accurate than chance, and amusingly, the addition of a significant media profile suggests a greater likelihood of inaccuracy.
By refining his analysis over decades, Tetlock has compiled a list of forecasting commandments. Unsurprisingly, most of these are broken when we approach a season at its outset and then misapplied once the season’s in progress. In the media, we’re guiltier than most, especially of one of Tetlock’s guiding principles: “strike the right balance between under and overconfidence, between prudence and decisiveness”. Online, in print and on air, it pays to be heard, regardless of subsequent accuracy. Part of Tetlock’s mission is to bring accountability back into public debate.
“Strike the right balance between inside and outside views,” is another of Tetlock’s commandments. At the start of the season if you’d have asked someone unfamiliar with Australian football who was likely to win the 2016 premiership there’s a good chance one of the first questions they’d ask is “who won it last year?”. They’d be told the team that won it last year also won it the two previous years, and reached the grand final the year before that. From that ‘outside’ position you’d need some serious convincing as to why Hawthorn shouldn’t be the flag tip. We’ve done a good job convincing ourselves.
Our imbalance towards ‘inside’ information in football seems to disproportionately influence our reasoning. We focus on an ageing list nearing the end of its cycle, the departures of Brian Lake, David Hale and Matt Suckling, and the absence of Jarryd Roughead. It would be foolish to argue Hawthorn are a better side this year than last, but according to the ladder the drop off may be less significant than we thought early in the campaign, and crucially, not yet below the level of any of their rivals over the course of a season.
Another example of questionable inside-outside logic involves the bookies’ favourites Geelong. The Cats finished 10th on last year’s ladder. As spectacularly as they have recruited, making such a dramatic leap in a single season would likely be deemed improbable by one of Tetlock’s superforecasters as only two teams have ever finished out of the eight one season and won the next. This is a good example of our enthusiastic barracking for a story. Not only do we want something else to talk about besides Hawthorn’s dominance, it’s easy to be swept along by the vibrancy of Patrick Dangerfield.
Tetlock’s commandment, “strike the right balance between under and overreacting to the evidence,” has been apparent at different times this season. Narrow wins over the Bulldogs, St Kilda and Adelaide in rounds three to five convinced many of us the Hawks were shot. Two of those opponents are now considered genuine premiership threats and the third recently upset Geelong.
The contested possession deficiency is a more compelling piece of evidence used to write off Hawthorn. The Hawks are the only side in a finals spot not to feature in the top eight for contested possession differential. Moreover, they are a clear last in that category across the competition. Should the Hawks defy that piece of logic much longer a radical insight into the season will surely be identified.
The perspective of even the sharpest minds is blurred by this season being as open as any since 1993, and possibly beyond. On one hand Hawthorn could be fortunate that nobody has streaked past them out of the pack. On the other, such an even, high quality top eight testifies to the Hawks’ continued high standards.
This all doesn’t mean Hawthorn will win the flag, of course, but that we shouldn’t be surprised if they do, and that they probably deserve more plaudits for what they’re achieving this year.
Quote of the week
“It’s a perfect time for Matthew to move on, for us and him.”
Ross Lyon delivered the news we’ve been expecting to hear at some point this season on the impending retirement of Matthew Pavlich. Out of the spotlight at an unfashionable club it’s easy to overlook Pavlich’s impact on the game. He leads Fremantle’s appearance record by over 100. He’ll retire with around 350 games under his belt, placing him in the VFL/AFL all time top 15. He’s featured at least 18 times in every completed season but one this millennium. Between 2001 and 2008 he played 160 games in a row, a run that included six All-Australian guernseys. He’ll leave the Dockers having kicked around 700 goals, ranking him in the top 25 most prolific forwards in history.
Photograph of the week
I love this Michael Wilson shot. Capturing the compression of the Sherrin at the moment of a centre bounce is brilliant on its own but to have Ray Chamberlain alongside in such a study of concentration tops it off. Expect to see this in umpiring ‘how to’ guides in coming years. Until they do away with the bounce, that is.
Bits and bobs
There’s no doubting the match of the round is Sydney’s Friday night excursion to Geelong. With the top eight so tightly bunched the remaining head to heads between the contenders will be – forgive me – eight-pointers. There will be subplots aplenty at Simonds Stadium with Mitch Clark in line to make his latest comeback for the Cats and an unfortunately public family dispute souring Kieren Jack’s 200th appearance for the Swans. Both teams lost last time out so expect this to be as fiercely contested as they come.
Finally, a quick congratulations to North Melbourne’s Sam Gibson who this week will become only the tenth player in VFL/AFL history to play 100 consecutive games from debut. A fair achievement for anyone, let alone pick 63 in the 2012 Rookie Draft.
