Near stasis again on the MAFL Ratings Leaderboard with only the teams rated last and second-last landing blows in the contest to avoid being labelled the Worst Team of 2011. Meantime Collingwood, now rated 1,065.9, have elevated themselves to be just over 2 points shy of the high-water mark set by the Dons of 2000 of 1,068.1 Ratings Points, the highest Rating achieved by any team in the time for which Ratings have been calculated (1999 to the present).

With the top 4 teams all accumulating Ratings Points, the team ranked 8th shedding Points, and the team ranked 14th having the bye, our two measures of competitive inequality have both reached season highs: the Ratings Points gap between the teams ranked 4th and 14th is now 58.8 Ratings Points, and that between the teams ranked 4th and 8th is now 26.4 Ratings Points.

Turning next to a consideration of the teams with the best recent records of accumulating Ratings Points we find the Saints, Pies, Hawks, Swans and Cats atop the list, each having gained at least 4.5 Ratings Points over the past 5 rounds, nearer 10 Ratings Points in the case of the Saints.

The Blues, Eagles and Roos are the only other teams to have made nett gains during this period.

Ratings Point contributions have been a little more evenly spread, with especially generous contributions from the Tigers, Dees and the Power, moderate pledges from the Dons, Dogs, Lions and Crows, and more minor offerings from the Suns and the Dockers.

Despite the sizeable Ratings Point adjustments for many teams across this five round period only two teams have altered their ranking by more than one place: Melbourne, who've dropped from 10th to 12th, and St Kilda who've climbed from 7th to 5th.

Eight other teams have moved by a single spot: Adelaide (up from 14th to 13th), Essendon (up from 12th to 11th), Fremantle (up from 11th to 10th), Gold Coast (up from 17th to 16th), Western Bulldogs (up from 9th to 8th), Richmond (down from 13th to 14th), Sydney (down from 5th to 6th) and West Coast (down from 6th to 7th).

The teams with the greatest discrepancy between their ranking on MARS Ratings and their competition ladder position are now the Eagles, 4th on the competition ladder but 7th on MARS Ratings, and the Bulldogs, 12th on the competition ladder but 8th on MARS Ratings.

Only three other teams differ by more than one position in their ranking on MARS Ratings and their spot on the competition ladder: the Saints (5th on MARS and 7th on the ladder), Freo (10th on MARS and 8th on the ladder), and the Dons (11th on MARS and 9th on the ladder).

Colley and Massey rankings were also very stable this week. Using the Colley System, 11 teams' rankings were unchanged and the six remaining teams moved by no more than one ladder spot. The Massey System left 10 teams with unchanged rankings, six more moving by only a single spot, and just one team, Melbourne, moving by two spots (surely a reasonable move when you're on the back end of a 186-point loss).