2025 - Team Ratings After Round 9

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In an interesting week, MoSSBODS lowered the Rating of its Top 4 teams, but left them in the same order, and MoSHBODS did the same for its Top 3. That left MoSSBODS with the same Top 3 of Dogs, Pies, and Lions, and MoSHBODS with the same Top 3 of Dogs, Pies, and Hawks.

Further down, MoSSBODS re-ranked only four teams this week, and all by just a single spot, while MoSHBODS also re-ranked only four teams, but two teams by two spots: the Lions down 2 into 6th, and Gold Coast up 2 into 5th.

Interestingly, Geelong gained Rating Points on MoSSBODS (because of its 31 to 25 scoring shot “victory” over GWS) but lost them on MoSHBODS, while GWS did the opposite.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings still stands at +0.97 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 0.88 times its Combined MoSSBODS Rating.

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

MoSSBODS still has 11 teams rated as above average on offence, as now does MoSHBODS, and the same 11 teams. MoSSBODS also has 10 teams rated as above average on defence, while MoSHBODS has 11, but it includes Adelaide and GWS, and swaps out St Kilda.

Offensive ratings on MoSSBODS currently span a range of 1.29 standard deviations and defensive ratings a range of 1.33 standard deviations. Offensive ratings on MoSHBODS span a range of 1.19 standard deviations and defensive ratings a range of about 1.27 standard deviations.

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, 10 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (up 1), 6 are rated negatively on both (down 1), only 1 is rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (no change), and one is rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (no change).

Despite the large number of teams with sign-matched offensive and defensive ratings, the correlation between the teams’ MoSHBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.8, which is down a little on 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 9s.

There is still no team sitting in the top decile for Combined Rating of teams that went on to make their Grand Final. Collingwood and the Western Bulldogs remain closest, but both fell back this week.

And, finally, it’s time to take a look at MARS, which re-ranked eight teams this week, including moving Hawthorn up two places into 1st, Collingwood up one place into 3rd, and dropping the Western Bulldogs by a single place back into 2nd.

Further down, Brisbane Lions fell two spots into 4th, and there were four single spot moving teams.

Just over 24 Rating Points now separates 1st from 13th, which roughly equates to a score gap at a neutral venue of about 19 points.

By way of comparison, at the end of Round 8 last season, the gap between 1st and 13th was just over 30 Rating Points, or roughly 24 points. Sydney was at that point ranked 1st with a Rating of 1,027.1, Gold Coast were 13th on 996.7, and North Melbourne were last on 948.5.

There are currently 11 teams rated better-than-average by MARS.

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: Gold Coast (ignorng MoSHBODS) and Essendon

LOWER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: Western Bulldogs and Sydney

MoSSBODS this week provides the most outlying rankings at 12, ahead of MARS with 6, and MoSHBODS with 5.

MoSSBODS is particularly different in terms of its ranking of Sydney.

MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of only 6 teams, MoSSBODS and MARS about only 4, and MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS also about only 3.

Looking finally at the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team we find that Gold Coast, GWS, and Sydney all have the widest range of rankings at four spots, and that there are still five other teams whose rankings span more than two spots. All but Gold Coast amongst the teams with ranges of more than two spots have MoSSBODS defining one end of the range of rankings.

There is now only one team that the Systems unanimously rank: West Coast.