2026 - Team Ratings After Round 21

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MoSHBODS changed the ranking of only seven teams again this week, including flipping Sydney into 4th ahead of Brisbane Lions but moving none of the Top 3 teams, which remain Fremantle, Hawthorn, and Geelong.

The only multi-spot movers were Carlton (up 3 into 9th) and Port Adelaide (down 2 into 13th).

MARS again rerated 11 teams, including moving Geelong into 2nd ahead of Hawthorn to leave it with a Top 3 of Fremantle, Geelong, and Hawthorn.

Its multi-spot movers were Carlton (up 3 into 9th, Brisbane Lions (down 2 into 6th), and St Kilda (down 3 into 12th).

MoSHBODS RATINGS

Overall, MoSHBODS now has 12 teams rated as above average with the Power just falling below the cutoff.

On the Component Ratings, on offence we find MoSHBODS still with a Top 3 of Lions, Swans, and Cats, while on defence it has a Top 3 of Dockers, Crows, and Hawks. Twelve teams are rated as above average on offence but only nine on defence.

Offensive ratings currently span a range of 1.46 standard deviations (down) and defensive ratings a range of 1.42 standard deviations (up). The standard deviation of offensive ratings across all teams is 0.43 and that for defensive ratings 0.36. 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 down on 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 21 (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, in fact, also into 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 12 teams rated better-than-average, with the Gold Coast next lowest below the cutoff and probably four or more good results away from lifting above it.

As noted earlier, it now has a Top 3 of Fremantle, Geelong, and Hawthorn, which is the same composition as MoSHBODS but with 2nd and 3rd swapped.

The gap from 1st to 2nd is now 5.7 Rating Points (down), from 1st to 4th is 12.7 Rating Points (up), and from 1st to 10th is 35.1 Rating Points (down).

Across all 18 teams, the Ratings span 94.1 Rating Points (down), the mean is 1,000 Rating Points, and the standard deviation is 28.3 Rating Points (up).

COMPARISON OF MOSHBODS AND MARS

The correlation between MoSHBODS’ Combined Ratings and MARS’ Ratings stands at +0.989 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 0.0255 times its MARS Rating less 25.5.

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

  • None

HIGHER ON THE TEAM RATING SYSTEMS THAN ON THE LADDER

  • Geelong

MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of 10 teams now, and differ by as much as two spots about only two teams, GWS and St Kilda.

Overall, the rank correlation between the two Systems is +0.986.