Here is my final breakdown.
Oliver > Steele > Wines >>>> Bont > Walsh > Miller (I/E) > Parish > Mitchell.
I rate Oliver a ~80% chance of winning, with best chances to beat him coming from Wines and Steele. Wines has a bigger range, whereas Steel will be tightly between 28-32.
After Bont's poor last month, I only rate him a 1.5% chance.
To give an understanding on how I come up with these numbers, I run a formula that includes stats and opinions (SC, disposals, goals, w/l/d, best player order on afl.com.au, coaches votes, and this year I've also added zerohanger POTY votes. This is something I've fine tuned over around a decade now.
This gives me a 3-2-1 for each game, and then I apply a randomiser on top of that (to allow for when umpires get it wrong, haha), and run 1000 models of what might happen on the night.
Whilst it is the second hardest year to pick since 2015 (only Fyfe in '19 was harder), I'm pretty bullish on Oliver. His weight of opportunities to poll are just too strong.
Coaches votes winner will be announced tonight (I don't currently have these inputs for final two rounds), but Clarry will win this award with the fourth highest coaches votes tally in its history. Only Danger ('16), Dusty ('17) and Danger again ('17) will have finished with a higher tally, and in each of those years, they polled 35, 33, and 36 votes respectively.
The winner will very likely be at least 30 this year.
Oliver hits this mark 93% of the time
Steele 57%
Wines 46%
Bont 9%
Walsh 5%
If we normalise last years count to be over 22 games, Oliver had an equivalent of 18. And last year was his real consistency breakout, to which he's gone to an absolute another level this year.
I don't see Bont as a threat, in fact he actually has under polled in previous years vs my tallys (i.e. he won the coaches votes in 2019, and came eighth overall.
Wines has a weight of opportunities too, but his top end hasn't been where Oliver's has. Steele has had a great top end, but in the end his team only won 10 games, and his first half of the season was just too slow in a year where the winner will likely need to be in the low 30's.
