2012 MARS, Colley, Massey and ODM Ratings After Round 21

Round 21 was a round that made many pundits rethink their views about a lot of teams, all four MAFL Rating Systems included.

Even MARS, not usually the quickest to change its opinions, found reason to re-rank 10 teams, three of them by two places or more: the Roos, from 8th to 5th; the Crows, from 6th to 8th; and the Dockers, from 12th to 10th.

The largest discrepancies between MARS ranking and competition ladder position now belong to Geelong, 3rd on MARS and 7th on the ladder; St Kilda, 6th on MARS and 11th on the ladder; and Adelaide, 8th on MARS and 3rd on the ladder.

Adelaide's discrepancy has come despite a small net gain in Rating Points (RPs) over the past five rounds - the smallest net gain of all the teams, but a net gain nonetheless.

The biggest gainers have been the Roos, Cats, Hawks and Dockers, each of which has netted 10 or more RPs across those five rounds, followed by the Swans, Blues and Tigers, each of which has gained between 6 and 9 RPs. The only other team to gain RPs in this period has been GWS, which has inched up by about 2 RPs.

Essendon and the Dogs have been the biggest losers across this same time period, each dropping between about 16.5 and 19 RPs, with the Lions and Port Adelaide occupying the next logical tranche of RP surrenderers, shedding between about 9 and 10 RPs each.

The Pies and the Suns form the next tier of teams, dropping between about 5 and 6 RPs each, leaving only the Saints, Dees and Eagles to account for, each of which has given up between about 1.5 and 2.5 RPs each.

For the most part, these gains and losses have translated into only minor re-rankings on MARS Ratings, the exceptions being the accumulation of the Roos, which has served to elevate them by 5 spots, and the decumulation of the Dons, which has served to drop them by 5 spots.

The weeks' RP changes increased the interquartile gap between the teams in 4th and 15th, which now stands at a season-high 69.9 RPs. The good news, I suppose, is that the team in 15th, Melbourne, is mathematically incapable of contesting the Finals. (That's now also true of the teams in 13th and 14th.)

MARS' re-ranking of 10 teams was exceeded only by Massey's re-ranking of 12, including four teams by multiple places: the Dons from 10th to 12th, the Tigers from 9th to 11th, the Eagles from 5th to 3rd, and the Blues from 12th to 8th. ODM re-ranked fewer teams, just six, but re-ranked four of them by two places or more: Carlton from 10th to 8th, the Roos from 12th to 10th, the Saints from 5th to 7th, and the Dons from 8th to 12th.

Colley, meantime, was far less reactive, re-ranking just five teams and only one of them by more than a single spot: Adelaide, from 2nd to 4th.

Six teams remain ranked differently by at least three spots across the four Rating Systems:

• Adelaide, ranked 3rd by ODM, 4th by Colley and Massey, and 8th by MARS
• Collingwood, ranked 1st by Colley, 4th by ODM and MARS, and 5th by Massey
• Geelong, ranked 3rd by MARS, and 6th by Colley, Massey and ODM
• The Kangaroos, ranked 5th by MARS, 7th by Colley, 9th by Massey, and 10th by ODM
• St Kilda, ranked 6th by MARS, 7th by Massey and ODM, and 11th by Colley
• West Coast, ranked 3rd by Massey, 5th by Colley and ODM, and 7th by MARS

In all but one of these examples it's MARS that's the outlier, which might be cause for concern but for MARS' continued superiority in predicting game outcomes. Last week, MARS and Colley correctly predicted the outcome of six contests based on the fact that they rated the winning team more highly than the losing team, while ODM scored five and Massey four on the same basis. This means that, since the beginning of Round 5, MARS has predicted 75% of winners, Colley 72%, ODM 71.5%, and Massey 70%.