2014 - Team Ratings After Round 17

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Collingwood, on the backend of a 10-goal thumping by the Dons, were shuffled down to 8th on the competition ladder this weekend. ChiPS treated them similarly, promoting the Roos, Crows and Cats above them.

Other groups of teams to move on ChiPS were:

  • Essendon and Richmond, who traded 9th and 10th
  • West Coast, who grabbed 11th, forcing Carlton into 12th and the Gold Coast into 13th
  • Brisbane Lions and Melbourne, who traded 15th and 16th

Those changes, coupled with those made by the MARS System served to align the two Systems' Rankings to an even greater extent, so much so that Geelong is now the only team Ranked more than one place differently by the two Systems: the Cats are currently Ranked 5th by MARS and 7th by ChiPS.

There are more and larger differences between ChiPS' Rankings and the competition ladder ordering, however, with nine teams' ChiPS Rankings differing by two places or more from their ladder position, the largest being:

  • Adelaide, Ranked 6th but positioned 10th on the ladder
  • Geelong, Ranked 7th but positioned 4th on the ladder
  • Gold Coast, Ranked 13th but positioned 9th on the ladder

Personally, I prefer ChiPS' opinions right now.

Returning to the Pies' woes for a minute, they've now shed ChiPS Rating Points (RPs) for six weeks in a row, and for eight of the last nine weeks. They've nothing on the Saints, however, who've assembled an unbroken run of unexpectedly poor performances that now spans 11 rounds, showering RP confetti on all the teams they meet.

Only one team has recently strung together a run of RP accumulation extending beyond two weeks: the Dons, who've put together a string of four. Over the past five rounds they've accumulated 6.1 RPs, bettered only by the Crows' 7.8 RPs. The Saints have shed 9.8 RPs during that same period.

ChiPS and MARS, as well as being similar in terms of team Rankings, also have team Ratings that are numerically proximate, though some divergence is emerging in their Fremantle, GWS, Hawthorn, Melbourne and Sydney Ratings.

Congruity is also the overriding feature of the team Rankings for all the Team Rating Systems, with only the determinedly-contrarian Colley registering somewhat different views about the appropriate Rankings of Adelaide, Carlton, Geelong and the Gold Coast. Note that three of those teams are the ones we called out earlier in the context of their ladder position being quite different from their ChiPS Ranking. Colley, being attentive only to results and not margins, tends to produce team Rankings that are more consistent with team ladder positions.

For many teams now, ODM's Offensive and Defensive Rankings are similar, the most notable exceptions being:

  • Teams with significantly higher Offensive Ranking than Defensive Ranking: Adelaide, Carlton, Gold Coast, GWS, Hawthorn and Port Adelaide
  • Teams with significantly higher Defensive Ranking than Offensive Ranking: Collingwood, Essendon, Fremantle, Kangaroos and Melbourne

It's interesting to note that four of the five teams from the second list are current in the Top 8 on the competition ladder while only two of the six teams from the first list are in this position - slight evidence, perhaps, that defence has been more important than offence so far this season. (The two teams from the Top 8 on neither list are Sydney and Geelong. Sydney's Defence is also Ranked higher than its Offence, while the Cats are Ranked equally on their Offence and Defence.)

With the Ratings Systems broadly agreeing about the Ranking of all 18 teams, it's no surprise that they selected the same teams in all nine games last weekend. Consequently there was no change in their relative accuracy in selecting winners.