Ten teams moved places MoSSBODS this week, and 14 on MoSHBODS, which left them agreeing at the top only about Melbourne (1st) and Geelong (2nd), and at the bottom about West Coast (17th) and North Melbourne (18th).

Despite the relatiely high levels of shuffling, Brisbane Lions and Carlton were the only multiple spot decliner on both Systems this week, and Sydney the only multiple spot climber on both Systems.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.9784.

To provide some historical context to the teams’ current Ratings, the chart below shows the Ratings of selected teams from V/AFL history after five rounds of their respective seasons.

Melbourne remains quite highly rated in historical terms, and in the top decile of ultimate Grand Finalists, and Geelong remain the only other team rated higher at this point in the season than 50% of the teams in history that subsequently made the Grand Final.

The animation below maps the path that each 2022 team has followed to reach its current Rating.

On the Component Ratings, on offence, we find MoSSBODS still with a Top 3 of Dees, Cats, and Lions, and MoSHBODS now with Dees, Lions, and Cats. On defence, we find MoSSBODS still with a Top 3 of Dees, Dockers, and Cats, and MoSHBODS now with Dees, Dockers, and Saints.

On MoSSBODS, 5 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (no change), 6 are rated negatively on both (down 1), none is rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (no change), and 7 are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (up 1). The correlation between the teams’ MoSSBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.72.

And, finally, to MARS, which re-ranked 13 teams this week, leaving only the Top 2, Bottom 1, and 8th unchanged.

Melbourne aside, it now has quite a different view to the MoS twins about the teams that should be at the top of the Rankings. MARS’ 2nd, for example (Brisbane Lions), is the MoS twins’ 5th and 6th ranked team, and its 3rd (Sydney) is the MoS twins’ 5th and 7th ranked team.

Five teams moved by more than a single spot, but none by more than two spots this week.

Nine teams are now rated as better-than-average by MARS, but with only three more Rated 993 or higher.

The Rating gap between first and last currently stands at just under 54 Rating Points, which is up about eight Rating Points compared to last week, but about equal to what it was at the same time last season when Richmond’s 1021.8 Rating topped the table, and North Melbourne’s 967.8 tailed it.

Looking across the rankings of all three Systems and ordering the teams based on the current competition ladder, we still find relatively large differences for a number of teams, the largest being for Fremantle and Carlton, where the teams’ ladder positions are well above their System Rankings, and Western Bulldogs and Port Adelaide (and, to a lesser extent, Geelong), where the teams’ ladder positions are well below their System Rankings.

MARS, to a lesser extent than normal, provides the most outlying rankings of the three Systems, it having the outright most-extreme ranking for 10 of the teams.

MoSSBODS, has the most-extreme ranking for seven teams, and MoSHBODS has it for eight teams.

Lastly, if we consider the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team, we find that Gold Coast and Richmond (5 spots) have the widest range of rankings, while 11 teams have rankings than differ by no more than 2 spots, including North Melbourne, Melbourne, and West Coast, for which all three Systems have the same ranking.

Two things are interesting here:

• After a few seasons where the Systems diverged significantly in their Ranking of West Coast, they seem to now have come to a consensus

• The maximum difference of just 5 places in the Ranking of any team must surely be close to an all-time minimum