2013 : MARS, Massey, Colley and ODM Ratings After Round 6

Carlton are the big movers on MARS Ratings this week, up four places into 7th after stripping nearly 3 Ratings Points (RPs) from Adelaide after their 115-83 victory. Other large RP gains were enjoyed by Essendon, who snatched 4 RPs away from Collingwood, gaining one ladder spot in the process, and the Gold Coast, who wrested 3 RPs from GWS but remained in 16th position.

Adelaide lost most ground on the ladder this week, dropping 3 places to 9th.

Port Adelaide are now the only team whose MARS Ranking differs from its competition ladder spot by more than 4 places. They're 3rd on the ladder but 13th on MARS.

None of the other Rating Systems ranks Port Adelaide as highly as their competition ladder position either, though none rank them as low as 13th. ODM and Massey rank them 9th, and Colley ranks them 7th but with a declining trend.

Port Adelaide apart, West Coast, Sydney and St Kilda are the only other teams whose ranking is in dispute. For St Kilda, Colley's low ranking of 16th is the outlier, while for Sydney it's MARS' ranking of 2nd, and for West Coast it's MARS' ranking of 5th.

Deconstructing the ODM Ratings this week shows large discrepancies between offensive and defensive rankings for: 

• Collingwood (weaker defence)
• Fremantle (weaker offence)
• Geelong (weaker defence)
• Port Adelaide (weaker offence)
• St Kilda (weaker offence)
• West Coast (weaker defence)

For the 12 other teams it's remarkable how similar are their offensive and defensive rankings despite, in some cases, relatively large movements during the course of the season.

Focussing solely on MARS Ratings again for a moment, here's the chart of all teams' Ratings across the season so far.

And finally, here are the team changes in MARS Ratings over the last 5 rounds.

The changes shown here have had the most significant effects on the MARS Rankings of Essendon, who've jumped 8 places from 12th to 4th, and on Collingwood who've fallen 4 places from 4th to 8th, and St Kilda, who've fallen 5 spots from 7th to 12th.

Hawthorn's, Sydney's and Geelong's gains have served merely to cement their rankings of 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively, while Carlton's have been enough for a less precipitous climb than Essendon's, from 9th to 6th.

Remarkably, Port Adelaide's gains, substantial as they are, have been insufficient to move them from 13th spot on the MARS Rating ladder, though they are now within 10 points of the Roos and St Kilda.

Ratings Point losses by the Lions, the Dogs, Suns, Dees and Giants have also had no impact on their respective rankings on MARS Ratings, with the 5 of them continuing to hold down the bottom 5 places.

The most recent Rating changes have left us with the largest difference that we've seen this season between the Rating of the team Ranked 4th and the team Ranked 15th. That difference now stands at 44.1 Ratings Points. In the home-and-away portion of last year's competition this difference reached a season-high 71.8 RPs at the end of the last round and was at 50.8 at the end of Round 6.

So far this season, the average number of RPs that have been transferred from one team to another has been 2.33 per team per game. This is very similar to last season's average for the home-and-away rounds, which was 2.32 RPs per team per game.