Round 4 felt about right, which is another way of saying it was frustrating. Five from eight is a competent week, not a good one. The misses were spread across confidence bands, and one of the two high-confidence calls went wrong. The season tally ticks down another point to 69%.
Round 4 Results
Brisbane Lions 119 def Collingwood 65 — Predicted: Brisbane Lions (58%) ✓
The model barely had Brisbane at low confidence, but they won by 54. Collingwood looked flat — their scoring has been inconsistent all year and Brisbane exposed it. A comfortable result that looks better than the prediction implied. Brisbane are building into genuine form.
North Melbourne 96 def Carlton 86 — Predicted: North Melbourne (61%) ✓
North Melbourne again. A 10-point win over Carlton at Marvel Stadium, their third win from four games. The model had them at medium confidence this time, which is a shift from where things stood a few weeks ago — 2026 results are starting to feed in and North’s improved form is showing up. Carlton continue to look brittle when the pressure goes on.
Fremantle 78 def Adelaide 76 — Predicted: Fremantle (54%) ✓
A 2-point win on the road at Adelaide Oval. The model had Fremantle at low confidence and they scraped through by the barest margin. This is the kind of result that goes either way — credit to Fremantle for holding on, but don’t read too much into it as a signal about either team’s quality.
Port Adelaide 90 def Richmond 48 — Predicted: Richmond (61%) ✗
The biggest miss of the round. The model had Richmond as medium-confidence home favourites at the MCG, and Port Adelaide won by 42. Richmond are in rebuild and the model is perhaps overweighting MCG home advantage for a side with limited quality. Port Adelaide, after their 2-point loss to West Coast in Round 3, bounced back hard. This was the wrong tip, and the margin made it look worse.
Sydney 163 def West Coast 35 — Predicted: Sydney (63%) ✓
The model had Sydney at medium confidence. The actual margin — 128 points — was one of the biggest in recent memory. West Coast were uncompetitive from the first quarter. Hard to know what to do with a result like this from a modelling standpoint; the tip was right but the scale of the win suggests something was badly off with West Coast on the day. Sydney look like a serious team.
Melbourne 109 def Gold Coast 89 — Predicted: Gold Coast (76%) ✗
The high-confidence miss. The model had Gold Coast at 76% and Melbourne won by 20 at the MCG. Melbourne have now beaten Carlton and Gold Coast in back-to-back weeks — both times the model expected them to lose. Something is happening with Melbourne that the rolling averages haven’t caught yet. Their 2025 finish was poor and that’s dragging the prediction down, but the 2026 version of this team looks different. Worth watching closely.
Western Bulldogs 99 def Essendon 65 — Predicted: Western Bulldogs (91%) ✓
The high-confidence hit. Western Bulldogs at home against Essendon at 91% is a big call, and it paid off easily. A 34-point win in a game that was never close. The Bulldogs are the model’s most trusted team right now, and they’re backing it up on the field.
Hawthorn 92 def Geelong 91 — Predicted: Geelong (51%) ✗
One point. The model had Geelong at 51% — a complete coin flip — and Hawthorn won by 1. There is nothing more to say about this one. Both calls were equally defensible, and one team kicked a point more. Over a long season these average out. In Round 4, it went against us.
Season to Date: 25/36 (69%)
| Round | Correct | Total | Accuracy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opening Round | 3 | 5 | 60% |
| Round 1 | 7 | 9 | 78% |
| Round 2 | 6 | 7 | 86% |
| Round 3 | 4 | 7 | 57% |
| Round 4 | 5 | 8 | 63% |
| Season | 25 | 36 | 69% |
The season accuracy has drifted from a peak of 76% after Round 2 down to 69% now. The model had a strong start and has had two solid-but-not-great weeks since. Nothing is broken — 69% over 36 games is a respectable baseline — but the early-season optimism has been replaced by something more measured.
Model Observations
Melbourne are outperforming expectations. Two straight upsets against teams the model expected to beat them. Melbourne’s 2025 rolling data is a drag on their predicted probability, and it’s increasingly clear that data doesn’t represent what the 2026 team looks like. This will self-correct as more games accumulate, but in the meantime, treat Melbourne tips with some scepticism.
High-confidence accuracy is under pressure. The model has had three high-confidence calls this season: Fremantle in Round 3 (✓), Western Bulldogs in Round 4 (✓), and Gold Coast in Round 4 (✗). One miss from three isn’t alarming, but the Gold Coast miss was large — Melbourne won by 20 — which suggests the model wasn’t just unlucky, it was structurally wrong on that matchup.
North Melbourne are a real team in 2026. Three wins from four. The model is catching up but still probably underrates them at the margins. Back them at medium confidence until the data says otherwise.
The 1-point Hawthorn result is noise. Hawthorn-Geelong at 51% is the model saying it doesn’t know. Hawthorn won by 1. File that under the category of results that will go either way half the time and move on.
Round 5 tips are up. Nine games next week — the model will have Round 4 data feeding in now.
Leave a Reply