We've had a cracking finals series so far and there's the prospect of even better to come. Two matches that stand out from what we've already witnessed are the Lions v Carlton and Collingwood v Adelaide games. A quick look at the Round 22 MARS ratings of these teams tells us just how evenly matched they were.

Glancing down to the bottom of the 2009 column tells us a bit more about the quality of this year's finalists.

As a group, their average rating is 1,020.8, which is the 3rd highest average rating since season 2000, behind only the averages for 2001 and 2003, and weighed down by the sub-1000 rating of the eighth-placed Dons.

At the top of the 8, the quality really stands out. The top 4 teams have the highest average rating for any season since 2000, and the top 5 teams are all rated 1,025 or higher, a characteristic also unique to 2009.

Someone from among that upper eschelon had to go out in the first 2 weeks and, as we now know, it was Adelaide, making them the highest MARS rated team to finish fifth at the end of the season.

(Adelaide aren't as unlucky as the Carlton side of 2001, however, who finished 6th with a MARS Rating of 1,037.9)