I'm dreaming, right?

[OneEyedSainter77]

I still can't believe it. It's too surreal. I have the horrible feeling that someone is going to shake me awake and this willl all be a wonderful dream.

I know it's nothing so far - well not nothing, 17 home and away wins is still pretty exciting, but it's not how good we could be, or how good we've been so far, it's the way we are playing, the effort and intensity put in every week.

I always thought if we ever won the flag, it would be a complete surprise. We'd maybe be the third or fourth best team in the home and away season and then storm to victory. Well, all right, I didn't ALWAYS think that but after the failings of 2004 and 2005, that's how I thought it would be.

It was more hope than expectation. 2006 showed we were never really up to it, but I kept hoping, kept wishing that it would happen for us. Even when we came up against the much better teams than us that year, I kept wondering "was this the week we show the football world we are serious?" It never eventuated. 2007 was much of the same and the first half of 2008.

But all along, I thought the year we win the flag, we'll come up against the best side all year and surprise them in the Grand Final.

I never, in my WILDEST dreams even imagined we would come out and play the style of football we have so far this year and get the results we have.

I'm always extremely overconfident when I go through the fixture and no matter how bad we were the year before, I always have us winning all but maybe four or five matches. the last couple of years its been around seven or eight. I actually predicted we'd drop out of the eight this year.

And it all makes sense.

Look at our core group, most of them around 26-28 years old, which not only says that THIS year is the year we are ripe for the premiership, but that if we don't do it this year (which from here would be more disappointing than any other recent year) we are still going to be primed to do it next year.

How did I not see this coming? How did I miss it? it really is so obvious. They know the gameplan now, they have perfected the style they need and they've all matured to the point where everyone has their head screwed on, we have belief, we have confidence, we have the entire package.

If this is a dream, please, don't wake me up...

[perfectionist]

Statistically, the chances of 17 wins in a row (all things being equal) are one in 131,072 so I'm not surprised that you didn't see it coming, just like the rest of us. I'm not sure whether this eases your anxiety, but the chances of winning 25 in a row (all things being equal) are one in 33,554,432 (cf the chances of winning Powerball, one in 54,979,155). Given the way the Saints are playing, sounds like an omen to me. Just might take a ticket this week.

[Premiers2009]

it depends how you crunch the numbers Perfectionist.
you could argue that the statistical liklihood of 17-0 is technically 34-to-1.

[saint66au]

Finals?? Huh???

Dont we just win the Cup for finishing on top??????

[Premiers2009]

STK in 2009: 25-0

[perfectionist]

Finals?? Huh???

Dont we just win the Cup for finishing on top??????

Nuh. But we would get the McClelland Trophy, our second.

[OneEyedSainter77]

Finals?? Huh???

Dont we just win the Cup for finishing on top??????

Wish it were that easy. Ah well, we're in with a slight chance.

[James]

Finals?? Huh???

Dont we just win the Cup for finishing on top??????

Nuh. But we would get the McClelland Trophy, our second.

Third, actually.

Scary thing is every time we've won it we've lost the Grand Final =/

[perfectionist]

...Third, actually...

Nope, second. Only won it once, in 1997, under the new rules. Never won it under the 1sts, 2nds and 3rds rules which applied prior to 1991. Only since then has it been awarded to the team which finished on top.

See here:

http://www.fullpointsfooty.net/the_mccl ... tm#Summary

[Maxstar22]

What a wonderful dream it is though.

I have been feeling the same way.

As the song goes "Wake me up when September ends"

[BAM! (shhhh)]

Statistically, the chances of 17 wins in a row (all things being equal) are one in 131,072 so I'm not surprised that you didn't see it coming, just like the rest of us. I'm not sure whether this eases your anxiety, but the chances of winning 25 in a row (all things being equal) are one in 33,554,432 (cf the chances of winning Powerball, one in 54,979,155). Given the way the Saints are playing, sounds like an omen to me. Just might take a ticket this week.

WARNING: MATH AHEAD!

Well, 131,072 are the odds of flipping a coin and getting the same result 17 times in a row, the odds of winning any given game of footy are less static than that... very few footy games are 50/50 propositions. (note to Premiers2009, to argue them at 34/1, you either have to have the worst bookmaker ever, or calculate probability incorrectly - 17 times in a row for a 50/50 proposition is 2^17, not 2*17... to get odds of 1/34, you'd need to get average odds of ~1.23:1 -- 34^(1/17) = 1.23 -- on all 17 games).

Also, since probability has no memory, once you've actually got your 17 in a row, your odds of getting to 25 are much friendlier: 1:256 (2^8, since you only need 8 more results), the odds of the next coinflip producing a given result are 1:2 regardless of what's gone before. If we take P2k9's 1.23:1, our odds are ~ 1:5.25.

I'd be curious to know what the progressive odds have been - i.e. our opening odds at the start of each game factored together... after the first few rounds, with a few outliers like Geelong, we'd have had to have very short odds (at quarter time against the Kangas, even after allowing the big head start, we were still favorites by quite a margin).

I'd imagine the number is well less than the coin flip of 131,072, but much higher than 34

After this thread, I'll also be curious to see what kind of odds we're getting against stronger opposition come finals.

[bergholt]

WARNING: MATH AHEAD!

Well, 131,072 are the odds of flipping a coin and getting the same result 17 times in a row, the odds of winning any given game of footy are less static than that... very few footy games are 50/50 propositions. (note to Premiers2009, to argue them at 34/1, you either have to have the worst bookmaker ever, or calculate probability incorrectly - 17 times in a row for a 50/50 proposition is 2^17, not 2*17... to get odds of 1/34, you'd need to get average odds of ~1.23:1 -- 34^(1/17) = 1.23 -- on all 17 games).

Also, since probability has no memory, once you've actually got your 17 in a row, your odds of getting to 25 are much friendlier: 1:256 (2^8, since you only need 8 more results), the odds of the next coinflip producing a given result are 1:2 regardless of what's gone before. If we take P2k9's 1.23:1, our odds are ~ 1:5.25.

I'd be curious to know what the progressive odds have been - i.e. our opening odds at the start of each game factored together... after the first few rounds, with a few outliers like Geelong, we'd have had to have very short odds (at quarter time against the Kangas, even after allowing the big head start, we were still favorites by quite a margin).

I'd imagine the number is well less than the coin flip of 131,072, but much higher than 34

After this thread, I'll also be curious to see what kind of odds we're getting against stronger opposition come finals.

excellent post.

i have no idea what conclusion to draw from it, but thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

[matrix]

im still stuck at ^

[asiu]

i have no idea what conclusion to draw from it, but thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

same

[thequarry]

Scary thing is every time we've won it we've lost the Grand Final =/

Both of those times were to the team who finished fourth...

[battye]

im still stuck at ^

To the power of. 2^2 = 4, 2^3 = 8, 3^2 = 9, etc.

[matrix]

well that cleared that up
ta

[Moods]

I can't believe we have so many egg heads supporting our club I'm seriously impressed with the maths, although wouldn't have a clue who is right or wrong.

[InkerSaint]

Okay... how many games have we been genuinely lucky to win?

I would have the odds of Geelong not having S. Johnson available and losing to us as about 2:1, ie. a 50% chance of all factors in our favour.

Were we unlucky to let Carlton get within a sniff of us, or lucky to hold out?

For argument's sake let's rate that one at 1.5:1.

I rate the rest of our wins at 1.1:1, ie. an 90/10 chance in our favour. I can't be bothered estimating the odds for each game but that seems like a good average. I say this because with hindsight it looks like this team has left very little to chance.

That gives a result of approximately 12.5:1. Which is still pretty lucky. What you might call an outside runner.

Otherwise you have to argue that the Saints' winning streak is a fluke, right?

[OneEyedSainter77]

How did this thread become so complex? It was just me saying that I couldn't believe how well we were doing and it's turned into a math debating session.

Not that I mind, I love a good math debate as much as anyone although I don't really understand a word of it...

I wouldn't say luck has anything to do with it - well alright we've had EXCEPTIONAL luck with injuries but for the last few years everyone has been saying that if we didn't have all these injuries, we'd win the flag - well, now we don't, so maybe it's gonna be true.

But in any case, luck isn't the reason we won games like the Geelong or Carlton games. I have no doubt that if Geelong were full strentgh we still would have won and if Carlton's game went a little longer we still would've won. Dumb s*** carlton fans think they ran out the game but as I recall, WE kicked the last goal of the game.

Off topic, how the hell did we only beat the blues by 9 points. In hindsight, we really should have FLOGGED them.

[mick13]

Off topic, how the hell did we only beat the blues by 9 points. In hindsight, we really should have FLOGGED them.

That was their biggest game in 7 years. And probably their best as well.

[Iceman234]

WARNING: MATH AHEAD!

Hmmmmm, statistician perhaps?

Did my head in.

[perfectionist]

WARNING: MATH AHEAD!

Hmmmmm, statistician perhaps?

Did my head in.

And sounds like a Yank statistician at that!

[Selhurst Saint]

Statistically, the chances of 17 wins in a row (all things being equal) are one in 131,072 so I'm not surprised that you didn't see it coming, just like the rest of us. I'm not sure whether this eases your anxiety, but the chances of winning 25 in a row (all things being equal) are one in 33,554,432 (cf the chances of winning Powerball, one in 54,979,155). Given the way the Saints are playing, sounds like an omen to me. Just might take a ticket this week.

WARNING: MATH AHEAD!

Well, 131,072 are the odds of flipping a coin and getting the same result 17 times in a row, the odds of winning any given game of footy are less static than that... very few footy games are 50/50 propositions. (note to Premiers2009, to argue them at 34/1, you either have to have the worst bookmaker ever, or calculate probability incorrectly - 17 times in a row for a 50/50 proposition is 2^17, not 2*17... to get odds of 1/34, you'd need to get average odds of ~1.23:1 -- 34^(1/17) = 1.23 -- on all 17 games).

Also, since probability has no memory, once you've actually got your 17 in a row, your odds of getting to 25 are much friendlier: 1:256 (2^8, since you only need 8 more results), the odds of the next coinflip producing a given result are 1:2 regardless of what's gone before. If we take P2k9's 1.23:1, our odds are ~ 1:5.25.

I'd be curious to know what the progressive odds have been - i.e. our opening odds at the start of each game factored together... after the first few rounds, with a few outliers like Geelong, we'd have had to have very short odds (at quarter time against the Kangas, even after allowing the big head start, we were still favorites by quite a margin).

I'd imagine the number is well less than the coin flip of 131,072, but much higher than 34

After this thread, I'll also be curious to see what kind of odds we're getting against stronger opposition come finals.

Well thats all well and good but do you think Chickens know how delicious they are??

[perfectionist]

...Well thats all well and good but do you think Chickens know how delicious they are??

Have you ever tried to catch a chicken?