2025 - Team Ratings After Round 14

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MoSSBODS left its Top 7 teams unchanged this week, while MoSHBODS fiddled a bit but moved no team by more than a single spot.

At the end of it all, MoSSBODS’ Top 3 is Western Bulldogs, Collingwood, and then Geelong, while MoSHBODS’ is Western Bulldogs, Geelong, and then Collingwood.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.972 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 0.88 times its Combined MoSSBODS Rating.

On the Component Ratings, on offence we find both MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS with a Top 3 of Dogs, Cats, and Pies. On defence, MoSSBODS now has a Top 3 of Pies, Dogs, and Hawks, while MoSHBODS now has Pies, Hawks, and Suns.

MoSSBODS still has 11 teams rated as above average on offence, while MoSHBODS has only 9, excluding Carlton, Sydney and Port Adelaide, but including GWS. MoSSBODS still has 11 teams rated as above average on defence, while MoSHBODS has only 9, swapping out Melbourne and Sydney.

Offensive ratings on MoSSBODS currently span a range of 1.52 standard deviations (which is widening) and defensive ratings a range of 1.3 standard deviations (which is roughly unchanged). Offensive ratings on MoSHBODS span a range of 1.44 standard deviations (which is widening) and defensive ratings a range of about 1.23 standard deviations (which is slightly shrinking).

We can also review the trajectory that each team has followed to arrive at its current MoSHBODS Rating (with thanks to www.footyjumpers.com for the use of their exquisite team guernseys)

On MoSHBODS, 7 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (down 3), 7 are rated negatively on both (down 1), two are rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (up 2), and two are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (up 2).

The correlation between the teams’ MoSHBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.81, which is down a little on last week.

To put the latest MoSHBODS Ratings in some historical context, here are the Ratings of teams across V/AFL history as at the end of their respective Round 14s.

The Western Bulldogs are now back in the top decile for the Combined Rating of teams that went on to make their Grand Final.

And, finally, it’s time to take a look at MARS, which re-ranked only five teams this week, putting Western Bulldogs into 2nd ahead of Collingwood and Adelaide, and switching Port Adelaide into 12th from 14th and St Kilda into 14th from 12th.

Just 27 Rating Points now separates 1st from 10th, which roughly equates to a score gap at a neutral venue of about 22 points.

By way of comparison, at the end of Round 14 last season, the gap between 1st and 10th was just over 30 Rating Points, or roughly 24 points. Sydney was at that point ranked 1st with a Rating of 1,036.5, Port Adelaide were 10th on 1,006.3, and North Melbourne were last on 948.2.

There are still 10 teams rated better-than-average by MARS, with Sydney only half a Rating point below the 1,000 cutoff.

Looking across the rankings of all three Systems and comparing them with the teams’ competition ladder positions (determined based on percentage of possible competition points collected and then for and against percentage), we find relatively large differences between the teams’ ladder positions and their rating system ordering for:

HIGHER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: No team

LOWER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: Western Bulldogs and Melbourne (ignoring MARS)

MoSSBODS again this week provides the most outlying rankings at 11, ahead of MARS with 7, and MoSHBODS with 5.

MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of only 7 teams, MoSSBODS and MARS about only 5, and MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS about only 4.

Looking finally at the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team we find that Adelaide, GWS, and Melbourne have the widest range of rankings at four spots, and that there is one other team whose rankings span more than two spots.

There are also three teams that the Systems unanimously rank: Essendon, St KIlda and West Coast.

Broadly speaking the various Rating Systems generally moved a little closer in terms of their rankings this week, as shown by the rank correlations below

:

  • MARS with MoSSBODS: +0.926 (was +0.897)

  • MARS with MoSHBODS: +0.971 (was +0.967)

  • MoSSBODS with MoSHBODS: +0.96 (was +0.948)