2016 - Team Ratings After Round 25 (Finals Week 2)

/

There's no movement at all in the ranking of any of the 18 teams after the second week of the Finals, despite some fairly sizable re-ratings from MARS, at least.

On MARS, Sydney grabbed 3 Rating Points (RPs) from Adelaide to extend its lead over them to more than 7 RPs. The Crows' rating decline has left them less than 1 RP ahead of GWS in 3rd, and only about 4 RPs ahead of the Cats. It's possible then that the Crows might finish the season ranked as low as 4th, though 3rd would seem most likely.

A little further down the MARS rankings, the Dogs picked up almost 3 RPs this week, but they remain almost 8 RPs behind the Hawks and are unlikely to bridge that gap.

ChiPS made smaller adjustments to the four active teams' ratings this week, with Sydney's 0.7 RP gain putting it now 6.4 RPs ahead of GWS and 12.3 RPs ahead of Adelaide. Geelong sit just 0.1 RPs behind the Crows in 4th and should move ahead of them with a suitably impressive victory in the Preliminary Final.

Under the ChiPS System too, the Dogs' ratings gap to the Hawks (6.7 RPs) seems insurmountable.

So, MARS and ChiPS now order the Preliminary Finalists as follows: 

  1. Sydney
  2. GWS
  3. Geelong
  4. Western Bulldogs

MoSSBODS RATINGS

Adelaide remains the highest-rated team on MoSSBODS, despite suffering an 0.46 Scoring Shot (SS) decline in its rating this week. It remains 0.5 SS ahead of GWS and 1.2 SS ahead of Sydney.

Only 23 teams in V/AFL history have ended the season with the highest combined MoSSBODS rating yet not played in the Grand Final (or, in years where there was no Grand Final, not finished as Premiers or Runners Up). Some recent examples have been:

All but the last two of those teams made it as far as the Preliminary Final. 

Before them, you need to go back to the Richmond 1968 team to find another example.

The table at right looks more generally at the relationship being teams' end of season MoSSBODS Combined Rating and their Competition Finish.

We see there that no team has ever won the Flag and been ranked lower than 6th by MoSSBODS (and the three examples where this was the case are all from 1972 or earlier). In total, 110 of the 119 Premiers finished with a MoSSBODS ranking in the top 3.

Runners Up cover, as you might expect, a wider range of MoSSBODS rankings, though 87 of them come from the top 3 as well.

The lowest-ranked Runner Up of all time was the Melbourne 1988 team, which ended the season ranked 8th. They finished 5th at the end of the home and away season, grabbing the last spot in the Finals and defeating West Coast by just 2 points in the Week 1 Elimination Final.

Anyway, MoSSBODS ranks the Preliminary Finalists as follows:

  • On Offence: GWS / Sydney / Geelong / Western Bulldogs
  • On Defence: Western Bulldogs/ Sydney / Geelong / GWS
  • Overall: GWS / Sydney / Geelong / Western Bulldogs

To put the current ratings in some historical perspective, let's first view all 18 teams against the backdrop of the final ratings of every team that's ever played.

You can see from this diagram how uncommon it is for a team with a Combined rating as high as Adelaide's to not make the Grand Final.

And, to get even more of a bead on the 2016 Finalists, let's compare their ratings with the final ratings of every Grand Finalist from history.

What's perhaps most notable here is that the Dogs, should they make the Grand Final, are likely to do so with an Offensive rating very low by historical standards. Still, the West Coast 1992 team managed to win the Flag with a sub-zero Offensive rating.