2026 - Team Ratings After Round 18
/MoSHBODS changed the ranking of nine teams this week, including moving Hawthorn into 2nd, dropping Geelong into 3rd, and dropping Sydney into 5th.
Further down the order, the big multi-spot movers were GWS (up 3 into 10th), and Carlton (down 3 into 13th, which makes it down 6 places in two weeks).
MARS rerated 10 teams, also moving the Lions into 3rd ahead of the Hawks.
Its multi-spot movers were Melbourne (down 2 into 5th), and Carlton (down 2 into 12th, which represents a slide of 5 places in two weeks).
MoSHBODS RATINGS
Overall, MoSHBODS now has only 11 teams rated as above average with the Blues and Dogs just falling below the cutoff.
On the Component Ratings, on offence we find MoSHBODS with a Top 3 of Lions, Swans, and Cats, while on defence it now has a Top 3 of Dockers, Crows, and Hawks. Twelve teams are rated as above average on offence but now only six on defence.
Offensive ratings currently span a range of 1.49 standard deviations (up) and defensive ratings a range of 1.27 standard deviations (up). The standard deviation of offensive ratings across all teams is 0.41 and that for defensive ratings 0.33. Teams therefore continue to be more differentiated by their offensive abilities than their defensive abilities.
The correlation between the teams’ MoSHBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.69, which is about the same as last week.
We can put the MoSHBODS Ratings into an historical context by looking at the offensive and defensive ratings that teams in other seasons had after Round 18 (recognising that this will have meant different numbers of games per team in different years)
We see that the Dockers are now the only team rated above the median for Grand Finalists at this point of the season in the context of history. They are also very close to being in the top decile.
We can also look at the trajectory that each team has taken so far in 2026 to arrive at their current rating.
MARS RATINGS
MARS now has only 10 teams rated better-than-average, with the Dogs, Blues, and Suns all falling below the cutoff this week.
It now how a different Top 3 of Fremantle, Geelong, and Brisbane Lions compared to MoSHBODS’ Fremantle, Hawthorn, and Geelong.
The gap from 1st to 2nd is now 6.1 Rating Points (up), from 1st to 4th is 10.4 Rating Points (up), and from 1st to 10th is 32.6 Rating Points (up).
Across all 18 teams, the Ratings span 86.2 Rating Points (up), the mean is 1,000 Rating Points, and the standard deviation is 26 Rating Points (up).
COMPARISON OF MOSHBODS AND MARS
The correlation between MoSHBODS’ Combined Ratings and MARS’ Ratings stands at +0.986 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 0.026 times its MARS Rating less 25.9.
Looking firstly at the comparison between the ordering of the teams on MoSHBODS and MARS compared to their ordering on the competition ladder we see that the teams with the largest discrepancies are:
HIGHER ON THE LADDER THAN ON THE TEAM RATING SYSTEMS
Western Bulldogs
HIGHER ON THE TEAM RATING SYSTEMS THAN ON THE LADDER
Geelong
MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of eight teams now, and differ by at least three spots on only two teams, GWS, who MARS have 7th and MoSHBODS have 10th, and Port Adelaide, who MARS have 14th and MoSHBODS have 11th.
Overall, the rank correlation between the two Systems is +0.967.
