The action on the MARS Leaderboard is, once again, mid-table this week, with the seven teams ranked 5th to 11th swapping ladder positions on the basis of the most-recent results.

Jumping three places are the Roos, who now find themselves ranked 5th on MARS while sitting 10th on the competition ladder. Carlton are the only other team to climb by more than a spot, moving two places from 9th to 7th though still sitting 9th on the competition ladder.

Richmond and Essendon were the teams slipping furthest, both dropping three places on the back of similarly-sized losses. Essendon are now ranked 9th on MARS despite sitting 4th on the ladder, and despite being only one of only eight teams to net accumulate Ratings Points (RPs) over the past five rounds.

Over that same period the Cats have been most RP acquisitive, snagging 6.5 RPs, though the Roos have been only slightly less successful in trousering 5.7 RPs. St Kilda have been the most generous team over the course of these 5 rounds, contributing 8 RPs to those that have come to play them.

Still we find broad agreement across the various MAFL Rating Systems about the appropriate rankings of most teams. MARS, however, persists in its more-lowly opinion of the Dons and more-elevated opinion of the Saints, while Colley is far less enamoured of the Roos and tha Saints, while slightly more impressed by the Lions' and Port Adelaide's credentials.

Next, looking at the separate offensive and defensive rankings from ODM, we find that the Dons' defensive ranking took a dive this week, while the Crows' and the Roos' rankings climbed a little. That leaves the Dons, Freo, Roos, Port Adelaide, Swans and Eagles as the teams with the most-significant differences between their respective defensive and offensive rankings. Freo appear to be the competition's Jekyll and Hyde, with competition-leading defence coupled with sub-standard offence.

MARS Ratings continue to be the best basis amongst all the Ratings Systems on which to predict game winners. Pursuing that strategy in every game this season would have resulted in 3 additional correct predictions relative to pursuing this same strategy using the next-best Ratings System, Massey.

And finally, here's the season-long chart of those MARS Ratings.