Port Adelaide are the competition's Most Improved Team so far this season, according both to the ChiPS and the MARS Rating Systems, Port having risen seven places in each System after accumulating about 20 Ratings Points on both.

On ChiPS, Port now finds themselves in 3rd place, while on MARS they're in 4th, MARS' loyalty to last year's losing Grand Finalists, Fremantle, preventing it from elevating the Power into a podium position.

Fremantle, in fact, are now the only team that MARS ranks more than two places differently than ChiPS. Only one other team is ranked more than a single place differently: the Western Bulldogs who are ranked 13th on ChiPS and 15th on MARS.

ChiPS now rates 10 teams as better than average, while MARS so rates 11 teams, West Coast the only team on the opposite side of average under the two Systems.

The high levels of agreement between ChiPS and MARS, not just about team rankings but also about team ratings and the change in these ratings from week to week, continues to be reflected in the chart of these ratings, as shown above.

Bringing in Massey, Colley and ODM we find that, if anything, the most recent round's results have generally served to align the rankings of the five Systems, the only significant exception perhaps being the Gold Coast, who Colley continues to rank far more highly than do the other Systems, Colley being cognisant only to team wins and losses and not to their magnitude.

ODM draws sharp distinctions now between the relative offensive and defensive capabilities of Adelaide, Carlton, GWS and Hawthorn (offence superior to defence) and of the Kangaroos, Melbourne, St Kilda and West Coast (defence superior to offence).

ChiPS continues to outperform MARS in terms of predictive accuracy, having rated more highly two winners more than did MARS at the time of the teams' meeting, while Massey, Colley and ODM continue to perform relatively more poorly than MARS on the same basis.

Massey now trails MARS by 6 tips, ODM and Colley by 10 (though tips based on the two elements of ODM - teams' offensive and defensive capabilities - curiously trail by only 8 and 6 tips respectively). Once again it seems that ELO-based Rating Systems prevail over the more simplistic Colley, Massey and ODM Systems, which incorporate only the results from the current season and which ignore the recency of results within that season.