2013 : MARS, Massey, Colley and ODM Ratings After Round 23

As far as MARS Ratings are concerned, the teams that have finished in the first six spots on the competition ladder are, currently, the six best teams in the competition, albeit in a slightly different order.

Fremantle did itself no favours this week in meekly surrendering to a much lower Rated team in the form of the Saints and, in so doing, effectively ceded 3rd spot on MARS Ratings to the Swans.

Both the 7th and the 8th MARS Rated teams, the Roos and the Crows, won't this year be contesting the Finals, while the two remaining teams that will be, the Blues and the Power, are Rated only 9th and 12th by MARS respectively. The Dons, who've been excluded, wound up Ranked only 10th after shedding a remarkable 16.4 Ratings Points (RPs) over the last five rounds.

GWS have ended the season Rated just under 908 after dropping more than 4 RPs in Round 23 and over 7 RPs in the five most-recent rounds, having almost certainly been saved from recording the first ever sub-900 Rating only by the graces of the AFL in prohibiting an all-plays-all home-and-away schedule.

Ultimately, MARS' rankings of the various teams, though different from their competition ladder finishes, was similar to the rankings of the Massey, ODM and Colley Systems for almost all teams, with the exception of Essendon and Port Adelaide (both ranked more highly by Colley), and the Roos (ranked lower by Colley).

The final component ODM Rankings reveal that Carlton's, Hawthorn's, the Roos', Eagles' and the Dogs' offences are significantly better than their defences, while the Dockers', Tigers', Saints' and Swans' defences are substantially superior to their offences. 

MARS has, once again this season, shown itself to be a (slightly) superior basis on which to select the winner of AFL games, finishing with a season-long score of just under 150.

Next best was the Massey System, which finished 3 tips behind, and then the ODM System, which finished 2 further tips adrift. The Colley System finished another 7 tips further back, 2 behind a tipping strategy based solely on the ODM System's team offensive Ratings, and equal with a strategy based on the ODM System's team defensive Ratings.