That’s all, folks! Another great home and away season, and I’m really looking forward to the finals. Unfortunately the Vixens won’t be in the mix this year, but there’s always next year—they put up a fight, but in the end, the Lightning were too strong, and kept the final spot in the semis. I think a slight upset to the Giants—even though they were the home team, I thought the Fever would have prevailed. It will be a massive game next week, the Fever having to play the Giants at home again for a second week running will be a ginormous ask! No other surprises this round, with both the Firebirds and the Swifts having comfortable wins over the Magpies and Thunderbirds respectively.

Where it gets interesting is the ladder—at the end of the home and away season, the final order is the same as what it would have been under the old scoring system. However, any win to the Vixens would have had them in the last finals spot under the previous system; whereas this year, the win needed to come with a bonus point in each quarter, or winning three quarters (and bonus points) with a final margin greater than 5. Thus, whilst post-hoc analysis shows that the bonus points didn’t matter in the end, they certainly mattered to game day pressure—it would have much more difficult knowing they had to win three quarters vs any old win.

To summarise, I’m not sure how to think about the bonus points (given it was my team that copped the pressure).

Wrap-up

If you missed my round 14 predictions, here they are.

Home Away Chance of home team winning Home Score Away Score Winner
Adelaide Thunderbirds NSW Swifts 7% 41 69 NSW Swifts
Queensland Firebirds Magpies Netball 94% 76 44 Queensland Firebirds
GIANTS Netball West Coast Fever 47% 69 66 GIANTS Netball
Melbourne Vixens Sunshine Coast Lightning 32% 51 56 Sunshine Coast Lightning

Team Abilities

"team-abilities"

Ladder

Squad Goals for Goals against Percentage Points (old) Points
GIANTS Netball 841 776 1.08 21 76
West Coast Fever 912 851 1.07 20 71
Queensland Firebirds 858 751 1.14 18 69
Sunshine Coast Lightning 809 752 1.08 17 69
Melbourne Vixens 855 814 1.05 16 59
NSW Swifts 814 816 1.00 13 48
Magpies Netball 801 858 0.93 7 39
Adelaide Thunderbirds 673 945 0.71 0 4

Check out the semi final predictions here.