2025 - Team Ratings After Round 20

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MoSSBODS left the Dogs and Pies in 1st and 2nd this weekend, and pushed the Lions back to 5th, behind the Cats and the Crows. Further down, it moved the Dockers up a couple of spots into 8th and dropped Sydney into the vacancy, and it swapped the Saints into 13th ahead of the Power.

MoSHBODS moved the Crows into top spot, relegating the Dogs into 2nd, and moved the Cats ahead of the Pies into 3rd. It also swapped the Suns into 5th at the expense of the Lions and, further down, moved the Tigers into 16th ahead of the Roos.

That meant that MoSSBODS finished with a Top 5 of Dogs, Pies, Cats, Crows, and Lions, and MoSHBODS with Crows, Dogs, Cats, Pies, and Suns.

Overall, MoSSBODS now has 11 teams rated as above average and MoSHBODS 10, with MoSSBODS allowing Sydney into the set.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.984 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 0.97 times its Combined MoSSBODS Rating. We are getting very close to on average parity between MoSHBODS and MoSSBODS Ratings.

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

MoSSBODS now has 11 teams rated as above average on offence, and MoSHBODS has 10 (dropping Sydney). On defence, MoSSBODS still has 11 teams rated as above average on defence, while MoSHBODS still has 10 (including GWS and excluding Sydney and Melbourne).

Offensive ratings on MoSSBODS currently span a range of 1.52 standard deviations (which is a little wider) and defensive ratings a range of 1.4 standard deviations (which is also a little wider). Offensive ratings on MoSHBODS span a range of 1.54 standard deviations (which has also widened) and defensive ratings a range of about 1.37 standard deviations (which, to complete the set, has also widened).

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, 9 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (up 2), 7 are rated negatively on both (up 1), one is rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (down 1), and one more is rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (down 2).

The correlation between the teams’ MoSHBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.80, which is up a fraction 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 20s. Note that some of the earlier years had fewer than 20 home and away rounds and so do not appear here.

Four teams are now above the median for the Combined Rating of teams that went on to make their Grand Final: Western Bulldogs, Geelong, Adelaide, and Collingwood. Western Bulldogs and Adelaide are also quite close to breaking into the top decile.

And, finally, it’s time to take a look at MARS, which re-ranked 10 teams this week, including swapping Geelong into 3rd at the expense of Collingwood, and Hawthorn and GWS into 5th and 6th respectively, at the expense of Brisbane Lions.

Gold Coast also took Fremantle’s 8th spot, and Carlton and Melbourne both moved above Port Adelaide, who were relegated to 13th.

Just over 23 Rating Points now separates 1st from 9th, which roughly equates to a score gap at a neutral venue of about 18 points.

By way of comparison, at the end of Round 20 last season, the gap between 1st and 9th was almost 27 Rating Points, or roughly 22 points. Sydney was at that point ranked 1st with a Rating of 1,032.9, Hawthorn were 9th on 1,006.2, and West Coast were last on 948.5.

There are still 10 teams rated better-than-average by MARS, after which there’s now a very large gap to Carlton’s 990.4.

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: Brisbane Lions (ignoring MoSSBODS)

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

MARS this week provides the most outlying rankings at 9, ahead of MoSSBODS with 7, and MoSHBODS with only 2.

MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of 8 teams now, MoSSBODS and MARS about only 4, and MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS about 9.

Looking finally at the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team we find that GWS now has the widest range of rankings alone at five spots, but that there are only three other teams (Adelaide, Gold Coast, and Melbourne) whose rankings span more than two spots.

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

Broadly speaking the various Rating Systems generally moved a little closer in terms of their rankings this week (MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS being a slight exception), as shown by the rank correlations below:

  • MARS with MoSSBODS: +0.938 (was +0.926)

  • MARS with MoSHBODS: +0.975 (was +0.967)

  • MoSSBODS with MoSHBODS: +0.965 (was +0.967)