At the end of Round 4, MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS have the same teams in their Top 5s, but now only have Port Adelaide and GWS swapped across their two orderings.

On both Systems, however, the Ratings remain quite compressed at the top. On MoSSBODS, 1st and 12th are separated by only 4.3 Scoring Shots (which is about 13 points), and on MoSHBODS, 1st and 11th are separated by only 14.8 points.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.9818 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 3.55 times its Combined MoSSBODS Rating.

On the Component Ratings, on offence we find MoSSBODS with a Top 3 of Power, Giants, and Swan, and MoSHBODS with a Top 3 of Giants, Power, and Swans. On defence both Systems still have a Top 3 of Dees, Dockers, and Saints.

MoSSBODS still has only 7 teams rated as above average on offence, while MoSHBODS has 11 teams so rated. Also, MoSSBODS has 12 teams rated as above average on defence, while MoSHBODS has 11 teams so rated.

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

On MoSSBODS, 6 teams are rated positively on offence and defence (down 1), 5 are rated negatively on both (up 1), one is rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (up 1), and 6 are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (down 1).

The correlation between the teams’ MoSSBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.58, which is substantially higher than last week.

And, finally, to MARS, which re-ranked only 5 teams this week, and still has Melbourne in 1st and GWS in 2nd, but now Port Adelaide in 3rd.

As we saw in the MoS Rating Systems, there is considerable Rating compression on MARS, with under 10 Rating Points separating 1st from 8th, and just under 15 Rating Points separating 1st from 10th. Previous analyses have suggested that a MARS Rating Point is equivalent to roughly 0.75 points, so these gaps equate to about 7.5 and 11 points respectively.

This suggests that, home ground advantage will continue to play a relatively larger role than usual.

There are now 11 teams rated better-than-average by MARS, and three more that are only a run of 3 or 4 strong performances away from being the same.

Looking across the rankings of all three Systems and ordering the teams based on the competition ladder (as per the MoS methodology), we find relatively large differences between the teams’ ladder positions and their rating system ordering for:

HIGHER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: Essendon

LOWER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: Brisbane Lions

In a return to normalcy, MARS this week provides the most outlying rankings at 9, ahead of MoSSBODS with 7, and MoSHBODS with three.

None of the the Systems rates any particular team idiosyncratically - not even MARS.

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

Looking finally at the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team we find that Western Bulldogs (4 spots) has the widest range of rankings, and that there are only two teams for whom the rankings span a range of more than two spots.

That signifies that there has been quite the convergence of opinion about team ratings this week.

There are also two teams that the Systems unanimously rank the same way: Brisbane Lions and Melbourne.