2025 - Team Ratings After Round 28 (Week 4 of the Finals)

/

Both Systems moved the Dogs back ahead of the Lions on Combined Rating this week, meaning that the highest-rated team at the end of the season missed Finals.

It left both Systems with final matching Top 3s of Western Bulldogs, Geelong, 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, but enough to leave MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS agreeing that the Top 3 teams on offence were Dogs, Cats, and Lions. On defence MoSSBODS finishes with a Top 3 of Pies, Hawks, and Crows, while MoSHBODS finishes with Pies, Hawks, and Lions.

The correlation between the two Systems’ Offensive Ratings ends at +0.984 and between their Defensive Ratings at +0.989.

MoSSBODS finishes with 11 teams rated as above average on offence, while MoSHBODS ends with 10, with the latter dropping Sydney. On defence, MoSSBODS ends with 10 teams rated as above average on defence, as does MoSHBODS and for the same teams.

Offensive ratings on MoSSBODS 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 1.7 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 end being 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 final 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 ends at +0.75.

Finally, it’s time to take a look at MARS, who left the ordering of all 18 teams unchanged this week.

So, at season’s end, the Ratings provide something of a natural grouping of the teams:

  • About 30 points better than an average team: Geelong, Western Bulldogs and Brisbane Lions,

  • About 20 to 25 points better than an average team: 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 ends up providing the most outlying rankings at 9, with MoSSBODS at 6, and MoSHBODS at just 3.

MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of 8 teams, MoSSBODS and MARS about 6, 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 finally five teams that the Systems unanimously rank: Brisbane Lions, Port Adelaide, Richmond, St Kilda, and West Coast.

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

  • MARS with MoSSBODS: +0.961

  • MARS with MoSHBODS: +0.977

  • MoSSBODS with MoSHBODS: +0.988