2013 : MARS Ratings After Round 25 (Finals Week 2)

MARS has been no fan of Port Adelaide's abilities all season, so it thought little of the Cats' victory over them in Friday night's Semi-Final. So little, in fact, that it stripped Ratings Points from the Cats on the basis that a 16-point victory was insufficiently decisive given their pre-game Ratings dominance and their home team status.

Sydney, on the other hand, were facing a more worthy and capable adversary in the form of the Blues - at least as far as MARS was concerned - and so gained Rating Points (RPs) after their 24-point victory.

None of these changes altered the overall team MARS Rankings, which remains with the same Top 4 as we've had since Round 15.

As you can see, most of the action this season, especially in the second half of it, has been for positions 5th through 12th on MARS Ratings, with Hawthorn holding down 1st spot for the entire season, Geelong and Sydney politely trading 2nd and 3rd, and Fremantle claiming 4th.

In the later rounds, the Roos emerged to grab 5th, relegating the Pies to 6th, just two spots lower than they started the season. Richmond finished 7th having started the season at 10th and peaking at a Ranking of 4th about midway through the season. Adelaide rallied at season's end to finish 8th, the same position they occupied at the first centre-bounce of the season.

Carlton also finished where they started, in 9th, while Essendon fell away in the latter part of the season to wind up 10th. Port Adelaide finished 11th having been grudgingly granted just two ladder positions by MARS over the course of the entire season. West Coast and St Kilda were the teams recording the most precipitous declines, falling from 5th to 12th and from 7th to 14th respectively over the home-and-away rounds. Brisbane rising just one spot from 14th to 13th, eventually separated these two teams.

Positions 15 and 16 were mostly traded between the Dogs and the Suns a few times during the course of the year, the Suns even rising as high as 14th for a brief period around Round 11. 

Lastly, the Dees and the Giants held 17th and 18th positions respectively throughout the course of the entire season.

So far, Hawthorn (+27), Geelong (+25), Fremantle (+22) and the Roos (+19) have been the teams with the largest net accumulation of RPs across the season. Richmond (+18), Port Adelaide (+14), Sydney (+13), Collingwood (+10) and Carlton (+3) are the only other teams to have a net positive record.

Adelaide (-1), Essendon (-1) and Gold Coast (-1) have all essentially stood still, while the Brisbane Lions (-5) and Western Bulldogs (-6) have registered small losses.

Much larger losses have been suffered by West Coast (-20), St Kilda (-24), GWS (-41), and Melbourne (-50).