2025 - Team Ratings After Round 23
/MoSSBODS moved seven teams this week, while MoSHBODS moved nine, though both, interestingly, increased the Pies’ Combined Rating and decreased the Crows’, despite the Crows winning 59 to 56.
The reason, of course, is because the Pies generated 2 more Scoring Shots and entered the contest lower rated than the Crows.
On MoSSBODS that saw Collingwood move into 3rd and Adelaide into 6th, allowing the Lions and Hawks to climb a spot each into 4th and 5th respectively. Further down, Fremantle and Melbourne swapped 8th and 9th, and GWS and Sydney swapped 10th and 11th.
On MoSHBODS, Collingwood and Adelaide retained their pre-round rankings of 6th and 3rd respectively, and the Lions jumped two places into 5th. The only other multi-spot movers were Gold Coast, down two spots into 7th, and GWS, up two spots into 8th.
The only agreement between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS towards the top then is Dogs in 1st and Cats in 2nd.
Overall, MoSSBODS now has 11 teams rated as above average and MoSHBODS has 10, with MoSHBODS excluding Sydney relative to MoSSBODS.
The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.989 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 0.97 times its Combined MoSSBODS Rating.
On the Component Ratings, on offence we find MoSSBODS still with a Top 3 of Dogs, Cats, and MoSHBODS now agreeing, while on defence MoSSBODS now has a Top 3 of Pies, Hawks, and Crows, while MoSHBODS now has Hawks, Pies, and Crows.
MoSSBODS now has 10 teams rated as above average on offence, as does MoSHBODS, with the latter dropping Sydney and including Fremantle. On defence, MoSSBODS still has 11 teams rated as above average on defence, while MoSHBODS still has 10 (dropping Sydney and Melbourne, but including GWS).
Offensive ratings on MoSSBODS currently span a range of 1.67 standard deviations (which is essentially unchanged) and defensive ratings a range of 1.39 standard deviations (which is wider). Offensive ratings on MoSHBODS span a range of 1.72 standard deviations (which is narrower) and defensive ratings a range of about 1.33 standard deviations (which is essentially unchanged).
Standard deviations of offensive ratings are 0.46 for MoSSBODS and 0.48 for MoSHBODS, and those for defensive ratings 0.42 for MoSSBODS and 0.41 for MoSHBODS
Teams therefore remain more differentiated by their offensive abilities than their defensive abilities,
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 1), 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 1).
The correlation between the teams’ MoSHBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.76, 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 23s. Note that some of the earlier years had fewer than 23 home and away rounds and so do not appear here.
Only the Western Bulldogs remain above the median for the Combined Rating of teams that went on to make their Grand Final, with Geelong just missing out.
And, finally, it’s time to take a look at MARS, which re-ranked only two teams this week, swapping GWS into 7th ahead of Gold Coast.
Just over 31 Rating Points now separates 1st from 9th, which roughly equates to a score gap at a neutral venue of about 25 points.
By way of comparison, at the end of Round 23 last season, the gap between 1st and 9th was about 15.5 Rating Points, or roughly 12 points. Sydney was at that point ranked 1st with a Rating of 1,027.3, Geelong were 9th on 1,011.8, and North Melbourne were last on 947.1.
There are now only 9 teams rated better-than-average by MARS, after which there remains a small gap to Sydney’s 998.9.
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 and Melbourne.
MoSSBODS this week provides the most outlying rankings at 9, ahead of MARS at 4, and then MoSHBODS at 2.
MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of 13 teams now, MoSSBODS and MARS about 7, and MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS also about 7.
Looking finally at the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team we find that Adelaide, Collingwood, and GWS now have the widest range of rankings at just three spots, and that there are only two other teams whose rankings span more than a single spot.
There are also sixteams that the Systems unanimously rank: Essendon, Geelong, Port Adelaide, St Kilda, West Coast and Western Bulldogs.
Broadly speaking the MARS and MoSHBODS moved a little closer together in terms of their rankings this week, while MARS and MoSSBODS, and MoSHBODS and MoSSBODS moved a little further apart, as shown by the rank correlations below:
MARS with MoSSBODS: +0.961 (was +0.971)
MARS with MoSHBODS: +0.992 (was +0.979)
MoSSBODS with MoSHBODS: +0.969 (was +0.979)
