Goal percentage - how does it work?

4:00AM Friday Jul 03, 2009 By Dana Johannsen - NZ Herald

If the thought of complicated maths equations makes you break into a cold sweat, it's probably best you don't read on.

For the rest of you, you may have gathered that goal ratio is set to play an important role in determining the final make-up of the top four and the positioning within it. So how does it all work?

Simply put, goal percentage is goals for divided by goals against.

To give you a rough idea of what each team needs to do, I've run a few numbers through the ANZ Championship's "finals predictor". In the race for the top spot, if the Vixens (119.83 per cent) beat the Pulse by 30, the Magic (125.59 per cent) need to beat the Thunderbirds by 2, if the Vixens win by 40, the Magic will need to win by 10. If Steel (101.68 per cent) beat the Swifts by one goal on Sunday, the Firebirds (101.25 per cent) will need to beat Fever by four to grab the last berth. But these numbers are just a guide.

Deep breath now, this is where it gets tricky.

Given goal ratio is used, it is important for a side to not only score as many goals as they can, but also to restrict the opposition to as paltry a tally as possible. So with that in mind a 55-40 win would be preferable to a 65-50 win. Of course, this is all based on the assumption that all four teams win their games this weekend, which is by no means a given.
 

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