There is still confusion and contention amongst and between the twins, with Port Adelaide retaining top spot this week on MoSSBODS, and Brisbane Lions doing the same on MoSHBODS.

Some movement did occur in the respective Top 5s, however, with Melbourne and Collingwood relegating Geelong to 5th on MoSSBODS, and Melbourne similarly relegating Geelong but only to 4th on MoSHBODS as neither System felt that the Cats did enough against the Dogs to retain their previous rating.

In total, 11 teams changed places on MoSSBODS, and 9 changed places on MoSHBODS with the big movers being Gold Coast, who rose four spots on MoSSBODS into 9th, and three spots on MoSHBODS into 11th. No other team moved by more than two spots on MoSSBODS, but MoSHBODS also saw Essendon fall by three spots to 14th, and Adelaide fall by four spots to 13th.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.9903.

On the Component Ratings, on offence we find MoSSBODS still with a Top 3 of Power, Lions, and Cats, and MoSHBODS with a Top 3 of Lions, Cats, and Power. On defence, MoSSBODS has a Top 3 of Dees, Pies, and Dogs, while MoSHBODS has it as Pies, Dees, and Dogs.

MoSSBODS has only seven team rated as above average on offence, while MoSHBODS has 11. MoSSBODS has 12 rated as above average on defence, while MoSHBODS has 11 teams rated this way.

To put the latest MoSSBODS Ratings in some historical context, here are the Ratings of all teams after Round 12 across V/AFL history.

Port Adelaide is still the only team with a Combined Rating in the top 50% of teams that eventually went on to make the Grand Final. West Coast barely moved in terms of its Ratings this week, and continues to flirt with record-breaking territory.

We can also review the trajectory that each team has followed to arrive at its current Rating.

On MoSSBODS, 6 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (down 1), 5 are rated negatively on both (up 1), 1 is rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (down 1), and 5 are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (no change).

The correlation between the teams’ MoSSBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.73, which is down on last week.

And, finally, to MARS, which re-ranked only five teams this week, and none from the Top 2 or Bottom 5.

Towards the top of the table we had Collingwood climbing over Brisbane Lions and into 3rd. while further down we had the only multiple spot mover: Gold Coast, who climbed two places into 11th, pushing Adelaide and Essendon down one spot each.

There are still 11 teams rated better-than-average by MARS, with Adelaide on 998.9 and Essendon on 998.4 both just missing that list.

The Rating gap between first and last currently stands at about 82 Rating Points, which is up by about another 3 Rating Points on where it was last week. The gap between first and eighth remains at just under 20 Rating Points, and that between first and fourth is only 4 Rating Points.

Looking across the rankings of all three Systems and ordering the teams based on the current competition ladder (using Match Ratio to adjust for byes), we find relatively large differences between the teams’ ladder positions and their rating system ordering for:

HIGHER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: St Kilda and Essendon

LOWER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: Geelong and Sydney (and possibly Carlton)

MoSSBODS this week provides the most outlying rankings at 10, ahead of MARS on seven and MoSHBODS on four. MoSSBODS is particularly different in terms of its ranking of Port Adelaide.

MoSHBODS and MARS now agree about the ranking of eight teams, MoSSBODS and MARS about only four teams, and MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS about six teams.

If we consider the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team we find that Carlton (7 spots) still has the widest range of rankings, and there are six teams where the rankings span a range of three spots or more.

There are now just three teams where the Systems are in complete agreement: North Melbourne, Western Bulldogs and West Coast.