2025 - Team Ratings After Round 24

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MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS moved only four teams this week, MoSSBODS swapping the Lions into 3rd ahead of the Pies, and the Roos into 16th ahead of the Tigers, and MoSHBODS swapping Hawthorn into 3rd ahead of Adelaide, and the Swans into 11th ahead of Carlton.

That left MoSSBODS with a Top 3 of Dogs, Cats, and Lions, and MoSHBODS with a Top 3 of Dogs, Cats, and Hawks.

It’s very likely, therefore, that the team rated highest at the end of the home-and-away season by both Systems, will miss Finals.

Overall, MoSSBODS now has 12 teams rated as above average and MoSHBODS has 10, with MoSHBODS excluding Sydney and Carlton relative to MoSSBODS.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.991 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 0.96 times its Combined MoSSBODS Rating.

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

MoSSBODS now has 11 teams rated as above average on offence, while MoSHBODS has only 10, with the latter dropping Sydney. On defence, MoSSBODS now has 10 teams rated as above average on defence, as does MoSHBODS.

Offensive ratings on MoSSBODS currently span a range of 1.69 standard deviations (which is slightly wider) and defensive ratings a range of 1.39 standard deviations (which is the same). Offensive ratings on MoSHBODS span a range of 1.7 standard deviations (which is slightly narrower) and defensive ratings a range of about 1.33 standard deviations (which is essentially unchanged).

Standard deviations of offensive ratings across all teams are 0.47 for MoSSBODS and 0.48 for MoSHBODS, and those for defensive ratings 0.41 for MoSSBODS and 0.39 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, 8 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (down 1), 6 are rated negatively on both (down 1), two are rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (up 1), and two more are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (up 1).

The correlation between the teams’ MoSHBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.74, which is down a little on last week.

And, finally, it’s time to take a look at MARS, which re-ranked six teams this week, swapping Geelong into 1st ahead of Western Bulldogs, GWS into 6th ahead of Collingwood, and Carlton into 11th ahead of Melbourne.

Just under 28 Rating Points now separates 1st from 9th, which roughly equates to a score gap at a neutral venue of about 22 points.

By way of comparison, at the end of Round 24 last season, the gap between 1st and 9th was just under 19 Rating Points, or roughly 15 points. Sydney was at that point ranked 1st with a Rating of 1,029, Fremantle were 9th on 1,010.3, and North Melbourne were last on 943.7.

There are now 10 teams rated better-than-average by MARS, after which there is a large gap to Carlton’s 994.8.

It’s been a while since we looked at the predictive power of MARS Ratings, so over the weekend I calculated the Margin MAE for MARS if we used the usual formula of:

Expected Home Margin = 0.8 x (Home Team MARS Rating - Away Team MARS Rating) + 6 (if the game is played at the true Home Ground of the designated Home Team, otherwise 0)

The season-long MAE using that formula is 26.27 points per game, which is very acceptable.

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 (ignoring MARS).

MARS this week provides the most outlying rankings at 9, ahead of MoSSBODS at 7, and then MoSHBODS at just 1.

MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of 8 teams now, MoSSBODS and MARS about 6, and MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS about 11.

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 at just four spots, and that there are only three other teams whose rankings span more than two spots.

There are also six teams that the Systems unanimously rank: Essendon, North Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Richmond, St Kilda, and West Coast.

Broadly speaking, MARS and MoSHBODS, and MARS and MoSSBODS moved a little further apart in terms of their rankings this week, while MoSHBODS and MoSSBODS moved a little closer together, as shown by the rank correlations below:

  • MARS with MoSSBODS: +0.944 (was +0.961)

  • MARS with MoSHBODS: +0.983 (was +0.992)

  • MoSSBODS with MoSHBODS: +0.977 (was +0.969)