2025 - Team Ratings After Round 27 (Week 3 of the Finals)

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MoSSBODS moved the two winning Preliminary Finalists up a spot each - Geelong into 1st at the expense of Western Bulldogs, and Brisbane Lions into 3rd at the expense of Collingwood - while MoSHBODS just moved Brisbane Lions into 3rd ahead of Hawthorn.

That left both Systems with matching Top 3s of Geelong, Western Bulldogs, and Brisbane Lions.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.99 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 0.98 times its Combined MoSSBODS Rating.

There was also relatively little movement on the Component Ratings, which left MoSSBODS on offence still with a Top 3 of Dogs, Cats, and Lions, and MoSHBODS with Cats, Dogs, and Lions, while on defence MoSSBODS still has a Top 3 of Pies, Hawks, and Crows, while MoSHBODS still has Pies, Hawks, and Lions.

MoSSBODS has 11 teams rated as above average on offence, while MoSHBODS has 10, with the latter dropping Sydney. On defence, MoSSBODS still 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 and defensive ratings a range of 1.41 standard deviations. Offensive ratings on MoSHBODS span a range of 1.72 standard deviations and defensive ratings a range of about 1.36 standard deviations.

Standard deviations of offensive ratings across all teams are 0.47 for MoSSBODS and 0.49 for MoSHBODS, and those for defensive ratings 0.42 for MoSSBODS and 0.4 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 rated positively on offence and defence, 6 are rated negatively on both, two are rated positively on offence but negatively on defence, and two more are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence.

The correlation between the teams’ MoSHBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.76.

COMPARATIVE RATINGS OF THE FINALISTS AFTER WEEK 3 OF THE FINALS

This week we look at the ratings of all Finalists from 2000 onwards as at the end of Week 2 of the Finals.

We can see that Geelong is in the Top 3 teams offensively in that period, but still relatively lowly ranked on defence. Brisbane Lions is Top 20 on offense, and more mid-pack on defence, but quite low for a Grand Finalist.

Finally, it’s time to take a look at MARS, whose only move was to swap Brisbane Lions into 3rd ahead of Hawthorn this week.

The Ratings provide something of a natural grouping of the teams:

  • About 30 to 36 points better than an average team: Geelong and Western Bulldogs

  • About 20 to 25 points better than an average team: Brisbane Lions, Hawthorn and Adelaide

  • About 10 to 16 points better than an average team: Collingwood, GWS, Gold Coast, and Fremantle

  • About an average team: Sydney

  • About 4 to 5 points worse than an average team: Carlton and Melbourne

  • About 12 to 15 points worse than an average team: St Kilda and Port Adelaide

  • About 32 points worse than an average team: North Melbourne and Essendon

  • About 42 points worse than an average team: Richmond

  • About 52 points worse than an average team: West Coast

MARS this week provides the most outlying rankings at 7, with MoSSBODS at 6, and MoSHBODS at just 3.

MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of 10 teams now, MoSSBODS and MARS about 8, 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 has the widest range of rankings at four spots, and that there is just one other team (Melbourne) whose rankings span more than two spots.

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

Broadly speaking, despite some larger ranking differences for a few teams, the three Systems still have quite similar views about the relatively strengths of the 18 teams, as shown by the rank correlations below:

  • MARS with MoSSBODS: +0.963

  • MARS with MoSHBODS: +0.979

  • MoSSBODS with MoSHBODS: +0.988