There were movements at the top of both Systems this week, which left MoSSBODS with a Top 3 of Brisbane Lions, Port Adelaide, and Melbourne, and MoSHBODS with a Top 3 of Brisbane Lions, Geelong, and Colligwood.

The big movers for the week on MoSSBODS were Collingwood and Essendon (both down 2), and Gold Coast and GWS (both up 2). On MoSHBODS they were, more dramatically, Port Adelaide (down 4), Essendon (down 2), Geelong (up 3), and GWS (up 2).

In total, 12 teams changed places on MoSSBODS, and seven changed places on MoSHBODS.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.9925 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 3.64 times its Combined MoSSBODS Rating.

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

MoSSBODS now has only eight teams rated as above average on offence, while MoSHBODS has 10. MoSSBODS also now has 13 teams rated as above average on defence, while MoSHBODS still has 11.

To put the latest MoSSBODS Ratings in some historical context, here are the Ratings of all teams after Round 18 of their respective home-and-away seasons across V/AFL history.

Brisbane Lions are now the only team with a Combined Rating in the top 50% of teams that eventually went on to make the Grand Final. There are just seven more teams that are Rated outside the bottom decile for teams that eventually made the Grand Final.

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

On MoSSBODS, 9 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (no change), 4 are rated negatively on both (down 1), 1 is rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (down 1), and 4 are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (up 1).

The correlation between the teams’ MoSSBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.74, which is up a little this week.

And, finally, to MARS, which re-ranked 12 teams this week, though none from the Bottom 3.

Amongst the moves were the promotion of Collingwood and Geelong into 1st and 2nd, and the demotion of Brisbane Lions into 3rd.

Collingwood’s lead over Geelong is 1 Rating Point, and Geelong’s over Brisbane Lions is only 0.4 Rating Points.

Further down the order, the biggest moves were Carlton and GWS up two spots each, and Esendon down two spots.

There are now 10 teams rated better-than-average by MARS and then something of a gap back to GWS on 997.5, St Kilda on 997.1, Essendon on 995.7, and Gold Coast on 995.2

The Rating gap between first and last now stands at almost 97 Rating Points, while that between first and eighth still stands at only just over 23 Rating Points. The gap between first and fourth is just over 6 Rating Points.

Looking across the rankings of all three Systems and ordering the teams based on the current competition ladder, 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: Sydney and Carlton

MoSSBODS this week provides the most outlying rankings at eight, ahead of MARS on seven. and MoSHBODS on five. MARS is particularly different in terms of its ranking of Gold Coast.

MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of seven teams, MoSSBODS and MARS about eight, and MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS about seven teams.

Looking finally at the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team we find that Gold Coast and Collingwood (5 spots) now have the widest range of rankings, and that there are still only four teams for whom the rankings span a range of more than two spots.

There are also four teams that the Systems unanimously rank the same way: Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Fremantle, and West Coast.