The first round of the 2019 Super Netball season is on us! And I’ve really left it late to get in my first round predictions, but here they are. To refresh your memory, here’s a description of how my model works.

Just as I did last year, for the first round of 2019 I’ve taken the final abilities from the 2018 model, and shrunk them towards the mean ability. The figure below show’s how the model had the teams after the grand final.

Predictions for the first round are given in the table below. The priors for these distributions are based purely on the final abilities from last season and do not account for any roster changes in the teams. Furthermore, the model uses score differentials to make predictions, so it will take a few rounds for the model to calibrate.

Home	Away	Chance of home team winning
Melbourne Vixens	Queensland Firebirds	18%
Magpies Netball	Sunshine Coast Lightning	0%
GIANTS Netball	NSW Swifts	69%
Adelaide Thunderbirds	West Coast Fever	0%

Score Differential Distributions

The distribution of the predicted score differentials is shown in the figures below. For each game, the chance of the home team winning is calculated and shown in the figure title. Each distribution is coloured by the team’s colours, and the more of a single team’s colour, the higher the chance that team has of winning. Overlaid on each figure are two vertical, dashed dark green lines; these show the score differential that has a 50% predicted chance of happening.