Geelong and Collingwood both saw their Combined Ratings decline this week on both Systems, which allowed GWS to extend its lead to 2.4 Scoring Shots over Geelong on MoSSBODS, and 6.8 points over Geelong on MoSHBODS.

Both Systems now have the same Top 3 of GWS, Geelong, and Collingwood, though, after that, the rankings become a lot more contentious.

The compression of Ratings noted last week has contributed to a swathe of re-rankings this week after, in some cases, only modest re-Ratings, with MoSSBODS moving 14 teams and MoSHBODS moving 10.

On MoSSBODS, the big moves were for West Coast (up 7), the Brisbane Lions (up 6), and Essendon (down 8), with no other team moving by more than 2 places. On MoSHBODS, the big moves were for West Coast (up 5), Essendon (down 4), and Hawthorn (down 3).

Those moves left the Systems now differing in their rankings of four teams by more than three spots (all of them by at least five spots):

• Brisbane Lions, ranked 6th by MoSSBODS and 12th by MoSHBODS

• Adelaide, ranked 12th and 6th

• Essendon, ranked 13th and 8th

• West Coast, ranked 14th and 9th

The Lions’ relatively high ranking on MoSSBODS stems partly from the fact that it currently ranks 1st on Scoring Shots per game, and its relatively lower ranking on MoSHBODS from the fact that it’s 14th on converting those Scoring Shots. In contrast, Adelaide, Essendon and West Coast are ranked lower by MoSSBODS than MoSHBODS partly because they are ranked 7th, 11th and 9th respectively on Scoring Shot production, but 3rd, 6th and 7th on Points Conceded (and 5th on Points Scored in the case of West Coast). Recall that MoSSBODS sees only Scoring Shots and MoSHBODS both Scoring Shots and Scores.

Also contributing to these differences in ranking is the fact that Combined Ratings are incredibly compressed now on MoSSBODS, with 5th and 12th separated only by 0.6 Scoring Shots, and also quite compressed on MoSHBODS, with 5th and 12th separated only by 6.2 points. The main conclusion from this is that we have a lot of very similarly talented teams at this point in the season.

Four teams are now rated above-average by one of the Systems and below-average by the other: Brisbane Lions, Melbourne, Western Bulldogs, and Essendon.

On the Component Ratings we see, on offence, the Brisbane Lions and the Western Bulldogs slipping into the Top 3 behind GWS on MoSSBODS, and the Top 3 on MoSHBODS remaining GWS, Collingwood and Geelong.

On defence, it remained GWS, Geelong and then Collingwood on both Systems.

On MoSSBODS, 7 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (up 1), 5 are rated negatively on both (unchanged), 2 are rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (unchanged), and 4 are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (down 1).

Three teams are in different quadrants under the two Systems:

• North Melbourne (positive offence and defence on MoSSBODS, positive offence and negative defence on MoSHBODS)

• Essendon (negative offence and defence on MoSSBODS, negative offence and positive defence on MoSHBODS)

• Sydney (negative offence and defence on MoSSBODS, negative offence and positive defence on MoSHBODS)

Looking across all 18 teams we find that:

• on offence, only Geelong, Port Adelaide, West Coast, and the Western Bulldogs are ranked more than 2 spots differently by the two Systems

• on defence, only Melbourne, North Melbourne, and Essendon are ranked more than 2 spots differently by the two Systems

Next, let’s compare each team’s current ratings with those of teams from the past at the same point in their respective seasons (ie after 14 rounds of the home-and-away season).

Teams shown as red points are teams that eventually finished premiers, and those shown in orange finished as runners up.

GWS remains the only team with a Combined Rating above the median for all previous Grand Finalists at this point in the season, and Collingwood, Port Adelaide, and Geelong the only other teams with Combined Ratings above the lowest decile for all previous Grand Finalists. Carlton, Gold Coast, and now St Kilda, who dropped 1.3 Scoring Shots in Combined Rating this week, have Combined Ratings lower than that of any previous Grand Finalist at this point in the season.

If we focus purely on those seasons from 2000 on, we obtain a similar picture for the teams above the median and we have Sydney joining the pack of teams with Combined Ratings below the lowest for any Grand Finalist.

The following animation shows the path that each team has followed, at the end of each round, to get to its current rating, and shows how GWS’ lead was extended this week, and shows Geelong narrowly grabbing 2nd from Collingwood.

ChiPS maintained the same Top 5 this week, but MARS switched its 2nd and 3rd to align its Top 3 with ChiPS as Geelong, GWS, and then Collingwood.

Geelong has quite a sizeable lead on MARS, but a much narrower one on ChiPS, notwithstanding that Ratings Points under the two Systems are not strictly equivalent.

Unlike the situation with the MoS twins, only seven teams moved spots on ChiPS this week, most notably Essendon, down 3 spots to 6th, exactly reversing its move from last week. Only seven teams moved spots on MARS too, and none by more than two spots.

That’s left the two of them disagreeing about the ranking of only Richmond, Sydney, and Adelaide by more than two places.

Looking across the rankings of all four Systems and ordering the teams based on the current competition ladder, we find that:

• Sydney still has the widest range of rankings (from 5th on ChiPS to 15th on MoSSBODS)

• Adelaide has the next-widest range of rankings (from 4th on MARS to 12th on MoSSBODS)

• Then come Brisbane Lions, Essendon and Melbourne (Brisbane Lions are 6th on MoSSBODS and 12th on MoSHBODS, Essendon 7th on MARS and 13th on MoSSBODS, and Melbourne 8th on MoSSBODS and 14th on ChiPS and MARS)

• Finally come Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs (Hawthorn are 9th on MARS, and 14th on MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS, Western Bulldogs 10th on MoSSBODS and 15th on ChiPS and MARS)

• No other team is ranked more than four places differently across the four Systems.

• Gold Coast and Collingwood are now the only teams ranked identically by all four Systems, but four other teams’ rankings cover only two or three values.

We now see fairly large positive differences between ladder position and Rating System rankings (ie three or four red dots, where Rating System ranking is much lower than ladder position) for only the Lions and Saints, and large negative differences (ie three or four green dots) for no team at all.