2026 - Team Ratings After Round 9

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MoSHBODS changed the ranking of just six teams this week, all of them in the top half, which left it with a Top 3 of Hawthorn, Sydney, and Geelong. Geelong, who rose two places, were the only team to move by more than a single spot.

MARS moved 10 teams, including four by two spots, and finished with a Top 3 of Sydney, Geelong, and Hawthorn.

MoSHBODS RATINGS

Overall, MoSHBODS still has 10 teams rated as above average, with Port Adelaide and Melbourne still very close to joining that list.

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

Offensive ratings currently span a range of 1.38 standard deviations (down) and defensive ratings a range of 1.23 standard deviations (down). The standard deviation of offensive ratings across all teams is 0.39 and that for defensive ratings 0.35. 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 +0.72, which is lower than 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 9 (recognising that this will have meant different numbers of games per team in different years)

We see that both the Swans and the Hawks remain rated quite highly at this point of the season in the context of history.

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 10 teams rated better-than-average, with Melbourne just missing out on 999.4.

Its Top 3 match MoSHBODS’ but with Hawthorn moving from 1st to 3rd.

The gap from 1st to 2nd is 1.8 Rating Points (down), from 1st to 4th is 3.9 Rating Points (down), and from 1st to 10th is 27.7 Rating Points (down).

Across all 18 teams, the Ratings span 84.9 Rating Points (down), the mean is 1,000 Rating Points, and the standard deviation is 24.7 Rating Points (up).

COMPARISON OF MOSHBODS AND MARS

The correlation between MoSHBODS’ Combined Ratings and MARS’ Ratings stands at +0.991 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 0.027 times its MARS Rating less 27.4.

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

  • Melbourne

HIGHER ON THE TEAM RATING SYSTEMS THAN ON THE LADDER

  • None

Melbourne aside, then, every team is ranked by MoSHBODS and MARS within three places of its ladder position.

MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of seven teams now, and differ by no more than two spots about the ranking of any team.

They disagree most about the ranking of Adelaide (10th on MoSHBODS and 8th on MARS), Hawthorn (1st on MoSHBODS and 3rd on MARS) and Port Adelaide (11th on MoSHBODS and 13th on MARS)

Overall, the rank correlation between the two Systems is +0.979.