A lot more stability in the team rankings this week, as Just seven teams moved places on MoSSBODS this week, and the same number moved places on MoSHBODS, which left them agreeing about which teams should be in 1st and 2nd, 10th and 13th, and 15th through 18th.

Altogether, there were four multiple-spot movers on MoSSBODS, including Port Adelaide, Carlton, and Gold Coast, all up two spots, and GWS, down three spots. There were only two multiple-spot movers on MoSHBODS: Carlton up two pots, and GWS down two spots.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings remains very high, and now stands at +0.9867. The correlation on defence alone is +0.9796 and on offence alone +0.9864.

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

Melbourne continues to be highly rated in historical terms, and is still, narrowly, in the top decile of ultimate Grand Finalists. Geelong remains 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. West Coast, having recorded just 56.25 points and 15 scoring shots per game, are flirting with being the worst-ever team, offensively, across the entire history of V/AFL.

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 now with a Top 3 of Dees, Cats, and Lions, having swapped the Cats and the Lions, and MoSHBODS with Dees, Lions, and Cats, having swapped the Dees and Lions. On defence, we find MoSSBODS still with a Top 3 of Dees, Dockers, and Cats, and MoSHBODS now agreeing.

On MoSSBODS, 5 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (down 1), 5 are rated negatively on both (down 1), two are rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (up 1), and 6 are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (up 1). The correlation between the teams’ MoSSBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.746.

And, finally, to MARS, which re-ranked 11 teams this week, despite leaving the Top 2 and Bottom 2 unchanged.

The big movers were Fremantle, up three spots into 5th, Carlton, up two spots into 10th, St Kilda, down two spots into 8th, and GWS, down two spots into 13th.

MARS continues to agree with the MoS twins about Melbourne being the top-ranked side, but is also maintaining a much higher ranking for the Swans (4th vs 6th or 8th), and a much lower ranking for St Kilda (8th vs 4th or 5th).

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

The Rating gap between first and last currently stands at just under 70 Rating Points, which is up by about 6 Rating Points compared to last week, and about 9 Rating Points higher than it was at the same time last season when Geelong’s 1023.8 Rating topped the table, and North Melbourne’s 962.8 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 few teams, the largest being for Carlton, where the team’s ladder position is well above its System Ranking, and for Port Adelaide and Western Bulldogs, where the teams’ ladder positions are well below their System Rankings.

MARS currently has the outright most-extreme ranking for 10 of the teams, a figure that is, surprisingly, matched by MoSSBODS

MoSHBODS has the outright most-extreme ranking for only two teams.

MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS now agree about the ranking of eight teams, MoSHBODS and MARS about six teams, and MoSSBODS and MARS just three teams.

If we consider the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team, we find that Gold Coast, St Kilda, and Sydney (4 spots) have the widest range of rankings, but that the range is just two spots or less for all but five teams.

The three Systems have the same ranking for Adelaide, GWS, and Melbourne.