The 2018 Men’s GV Playoff Picture

A year on and the GV Men’s league has a starkly different playoff picture.

With a final 8 system, and a regular season schedule that see’s Clubs play 10 of the 12 opposition Clubs, figuring out the playoff picture takes a lot more mental arithmetic than it has the last couple seasons; but Gridiron DownUnder has your back…

1. The analysis has NOT been confirmed by GV. This is Gridiron DownUnder’s own interpretation of the GV tie-breaker policy for finals.
2. The analysis and scenarios assume that if a game is forfeited at any stage by a competing team (even after the game has commenced), the forfeit is counted towards the GV tie-breaker policy. It is assumed that borrowing players from another team has not counted as a forfeit for the tie-breaker rules; for as much as any reason, getting our hands on that data proved difficult.
3. With the exception of this week’s Royals v Cru match up, draws have not been considered for any matches.
4. There may be some scenarios missing from the analysis below – but we’re pretty sure we’ve covered (almost) all of them, not withstanding ties.
5. The teams that are unable to make the finals have not been included in the analysis
6. The chart below has been split into two, for clarity sake. The top 4, with very few permutations and combination, and then 5-9, where all of the action is.
7. A finishing position of 9^th simply indicates that the team will not qualify for finals under the scenario; they may in fact fall lower on the table than 9^th.

The interpretation of the GV tie-breaker used for the analysis policy can be reviewed below the analysis.

• The winner of the Royals vs. Cru match this week will finish top two, with the loser finishing second. The Royals have the tie-break in the event of a draw, with a higher margin of victory against the highest ranked non-tied team (HRNTT), the Warriors.
• Warriors have third place locked.
• Rangers would have to drop the Week 13 match vs. Sharks to lose 4^th
• The only team in finals contention with a forfeit to their name is the Falcons. This is considered, but the data isn’t shown in the tables below. As such, they automatically are the lowest seed in any tie-breaker situation.
• Bucs and Dragons have secured finals spots, but both will likely be trying to avoid 7^th spot and a week one match up against the Cru or Royals, preferring to try their hand against the Warriors or Rangers.
• Predators & Raiders can finish as high as 5^th, but have not yet secured finals. The Falcons best possible finish is Falcons 7^th.
• There is a scenario where teams 5 – 8 could all end up on 10 points, and a 4-way tie-breaker scenario would be required. Teams included in scenario would be Geelong, Bendigo, Predators & Raiders. Ballarat could also end on 10 points, but with a forfeit, would be eliminated from the tie-breaker immediately, missing the playoffs.
• The asterisk’s in the following tables refer to:
  • Five Team Tie-Break Scenario
  • **HRNTT tie-break used