2025 - Team Ratings After Round 21

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MoSSBODS left the Dogs at 1st this weekend, but relegated the Pies to 4th while allowing the Cats and the Crows to fill the gap. It also swapped Melbourne into 8th ahead of Fremantle, and Carlton into 11th ahead of GWS.

MoSHBODS restored the Dogs to 1st place at the expense of the Crows, and left the Cats in 3rd. Further down, it moved the Lions into 5th at the expense of Gold Coast and Hawthorn. moved the Dees and Dockers up a spot, dropped GWS down two spots, and flipped the Roos into 16th ahead of the Tigers.

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

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

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.985 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 0.98 times its Combined MoSSBODS Rating.

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

MoSSBODS now has only 10 teams rated as above average on offence, as does MoSHBODS (dropping Sydney and allowing Freo). On defence, MoSSBODS still has 11 teams rated as above average on defence, while MoSHBODS still has 10 (dropping Melbourne).

Offensive ratings on MoSSBODS currently span a range of 1.63 standard deviations (which is quite a bit wider) and defensive ratings a range of 1.44 standard deviations (which is also a little wider). Offensive ratings on MoSHBODS span a range of 1.71 standard deviations (which has also widened considerably) and defensive ratings a range of about 1.4 standard deviations (which has also narrowly 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, 8 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (down 1), 7 are rated negatively on both (no change), two are rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (up 1), and one more is rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (no change).

The correlation between the teams’ MoSHBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.80, which is about the same as 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 21s. Note that some of the earlier years had fewer than 21 home and away rounds and so do not appear here.

Three teams are now above the median for the Combined Rating of teams that went on to make their Grand Final: Western Bulldogs, Geelong, and Adelaide. Western Bulldogs has also now broken into the top decile.

And, finally, it’s time to take a look at MARS, which re-ranked 11 teams this week, including swapping the Dogs back into 1st ahead of the Crows.

Further down, the big moves were the Lions up 2 spots into 5th, and GWS down 3 spots into 9th.

All other movements were of only a single spot.

Just under 25 Rating Points now separates 1st from 9th, which roughly equates to a score gap at a neutral venue of about 20 points.

By way of comparison, at the end of Round 21 last season, the gap between 1st and 9th was about 23.5 Rating Points, or roughly 19 points. Brisbane Lions was at that point ranked 1st with a Rating of 1,030.0, Hawthorn were 9th on 1,006.5, and West Coast were last on 951.1.

There are still 10 teams rated better-than-average by MARS, after which there’s now a very large gap to Melbourne’s 994.5.

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: None

LOWER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: Western Bulldogs

MoSSBODS this week provides the most outlying rankings at 8, ahead of MoSHBODS with 3, and MARS with an uncharacteristic 2.

MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of 13 teams now, MoSSBODS and MARS about 10, and MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS about 7.

Looking finally at the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team we find that Melbourne and GWS now have the widest range of rankings alone at three spots, and that there are no other teams whose rankings span more than a single spot.

There are also seven teams that the Systems unanimously rank: Brisbane Lions, Collingwood, Essendon, Port Adelaide, St Kilda, West Coast and Western Bulldogs.

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

  • MARS with MoSSBODS: +0.975 (was +0.938)

  • MARS with MoSHBODS: +0.992 (was +0.975)

  • MoSSBODS with MoSHBODS: +0.986 (was +0.965)