2025 - Team Ratings After Round 5
/There were some mostly gentle re-rankings on the MoS twins this week, with, on the increasingly-unreliable MoSSBODS, Fremantle climbing three spots into 9th, and Sydney, Gold Coast and St KIlda all falling two spots.
On MoSHBODS, Sydney fell four places, Hawthorn three, and Western Bulldogs and St Kilda two. Meantime, Collingwood, Geelong, Carlton, GWS and Gold Coast all rose by two spots.
The two Systems now disagree about the Top 3 teams, with MoSSBODS having it Dogs, Lions and Pies, and MoSHBODS Pies, Cats and Lions. Down further there is also a great deal of disageement between the rankings of the two Systems, with concurrence only about which teams are 14th, 15th, and 18th.
Nonetheless, the correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings stands at +0.95 and, roughly speaking, each team’s Combined MoSHBODS Rating is about 0.83 times its Combined MoSSBODS Rating.
Recall that both Systems are now denominated in standard deviations - MoSHBODS in standard deviations of recent team scores, and MoSSBODS in standard deviations of recent team scoring shot tallies.
On the Component Ratings, on offence we find MoSSBODS with a Top 3 of Lions, Dogs, and Pies, and MoSHBODS with a Top 3 of Crows, Cats, and Lions. On defence, MoSSBODS has a Top 3 of Pies, Dogs, and Hawks, while MoSHBODS has Pies, Blues, and Hawks.
MoSSBODS currently has 11 teams rated as above average on offence while MoSHBODS has 14. Both Systems have 11 teams rated as above average on defence.
Offensive ratings on MoSSBODS currently span a range of 1.1 standard deviations and defensive ratings a range of 1.2 standard deviations. Offensive ratings on MoSHBODS span a range of 1.0 standard deviations and defensive ratings a range of about 1.2 standard deviations.
We can also review the trajectory that each team has followed to arrive at its current MoSHBODS Rating (with thanks to www.footyjumpers.com for the use of their exquisite team guernseys)
On MoSHBODS, 11 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (up 1), 4 are rated negatively on both (down 1), only 3 are rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (up one), and none is rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (down 1).
The correlation between the teams’ MoSHBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.775.
To put the latest MoSHBODS Ratings in some historical context, here are the Ratings of teams across V/AFL history as at the end of their respective Round 5s.
We can see that, at this stage of the season, still no team is emerging as having exceptional talent with only Geelong and Collingwood sitting above the median Combined Rating for teams that went on to make their Grand Final.
And, finally, it’s time to take a look at MARS, which re-ranked 10 teams this week, but left Brisbane Lions in 1st.
It moved GWS into 2nd at the expense of Geelong, and moved Hawthorn down two spots into 4th, Western Bulldogs down two spots into 9th, and St Kilda down three spots into 13th. It also lifted Collingwood up two spots into 6th, and Carlton up two spots into 11th.
Just under 19 Rating Points still separates 1st from 13th, which roughly equates to a score gap at a neutral venue of about 15 points.
By way of comparison, at the end of Round 5 last season, the gap between 1st and 13th was just over 21 Rating Points, or roughly 16 points. Geelong was at that point ranked 1st with a Rating of 1,018.2, Gold Coast were 13th on 996.9, and North Melbourne were last on 961.1.
There are currently 13 teams rated better-than-average by MARS.
Looking across the rankings of all three Systems and comparing them with the teams’ competition ladder positions (determined based on percentage of possible competition points collected and then for and against percentage), we find relatively large differences between the teams’ ladder positions and their rating system ordering for:
HIGHER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: Geelong (MoSSBODS aside), Sydney (MoSHBODS aside), Western Bulldogs, and Carlton
LOWER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: Gold Coast, St Kilda and Essendon.
MoSSBODS this week again provides the most outlying rankings at 10, ahead of both MARS and MoSHBODS with 7.
MoSSBODS is particularly different in terms of its ranking of Adelaide, GWS, Port Adelaide, and Western Bulldogs.
MoSHBODS and MARS agree about the ranking of only 7 teams, MoSSBODS and MARS about only 5, and MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS about only 4.
Looking finally at the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team we find that Western Bulldogs has the widest range of rankings at eight spots, and that there are eight other teams whose rankings span more than two spots. All but two of these teams (Collingwood and Sydney) have MoSSBODS defining one end of the range of rankings.
There are four teams that the Systems unanimously rank: Essendon, Hawthorn, Melbourne, and West Coast.
