2012 MARS, Colley, Massey and ODM Ratings After Round 19

Moreso than for most weeks of late, I was interested to see how the various Rating Systems dealt with the results that Round 19 turned up.

MARS changed only the rankings of Adelaide and West Coast, swapping Adelaide into 6th and West Coast into 7th. No team therefore did it re-rank by more than a single place.

So unequal now are MARS' estimated abilities of the teams at the top and those at the bottom of MARS Ratings that we now have 11 teams rated above 1,000, a season high, and we also have an interquartile range - the Ratings difference between the teams ranked 4th and 15th - of 67.5 Ratings Points (RPs), another season high. At this juncture in the season, if Ratings Points were income, there'd now be serious concerns about the potential for civil unrest in the city of MARSistan.

Over the past five completed rounds the prime RP accumulators have been Fremantle, Sydney, Hawthorn, the Kangaroos, St Kilda and Adelaide, each of which has netted more than 8 RPs.

Geelong, Richmond and GWS have also gained RPs though on a much more modest scale. That means, amongst the teams currently ranked in the top six by MARS, five of them have been net RP acquirers over the past five rounds, Collingwood being the only exception.

The Dogs, Dons, Power, Lions and Eagles have been the biggest losers on MARS over these five rounds, each shedding between about 11 and 15 RPs. 

The Dees, Magpies, Blues and Suns have also surrendered RPs, though only between about 1 and 5 RPs each.

Per game, the average number of RPs changing hands this week was 2.29, slightly lower than the 2.44 per game that prevailed in Round 18, but nonetheless the continuation of a trend that has seen the per game average come in above 2 RPs per game for the past six rounds.

MARS' re-ranking of just two teams stands in stark contrast with ODM's nine re-rankings, Colley's seven, and Massey's six.

What's more, in Massey's case, three of those re-rankings were by two places or more: Fremantle was elevated from 12th to 9th, the Eagles demoted from 3rd to 5th, and the Blues also demoted, but from 10th to 12th.

Colley made only two multi-spot re-rankings, Adelaide from 4th to 2nd and Hawthorn from 1st to 4th, while ODM made only one, West Coast from 4th to 6th.

That leaves us now with six teams where the difference in the highest and lowest rankings across the four Rating Systems exceeds two places:

• Adelaide: ranked 2nd by Colley, 3rd by Massey and ODM, and 6th by MARS
• Carlton: ranked 9th by MARS, 10th by Colley and ODM, and 12th by Massey
• Fremantle: ranked 7th by Colley, 9th by Massey and ODM, and 11th by MARS
• Hawthorn: ranked 1st by Massey, ODM and MARS, and 4th by Colley
• The Kangaroos: ranked 8th by MARS, 9th by Colley, 10th by Massey, and 12th by ODM
• St Kilda: most bizarrely of all, ranked 4th by ODM, 5th by MARS, 6th by Massey, and 11th by Colley