Still quite a bit of rating movement in both Systems as they continue to recalibrate for the new season and as underdogs continue to be victorious.

Collingwood remains 1st on both Systems, however, now ahead of Melbourne and Sydney. The Cats have dropped to 5th on MoSSBODS, and 4th on MoSHBODS.

Overall, 14 teams were re-ranked by MoSSBODS, and 13 by MoSHBODS, 5 by multiple spots on MoSSBODS, and 5 by multiple spots on MoSHBODS. Only one team moved by more than two spots, and that was Geelong dropping three spot to move into 5th on MoSSBODS.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.9885.

On the Component Ratings, on offence we find MoSSBODS with a Top 3 of Swans, Pies, and Cats, and MoSHBODS with a Top 3 of while on defence we find MoSSBODS with a Top 3 of Swans, Pies, and Dees. On defence we find both Systems with a Top 3 of Pies, Saints, and Blues.

To put the latest MoSSBODS Ratings in some historical context, here are the Ratings of all teams after Round 3 across V/AFL history.

Only Collingwood and Melbourne (just)have Combined Ratings that are in the top 50% of teams that eventually went on to make the Grand Final.

On MoSSBODS, 6 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (down 1), 6 are rated negatively on both (no change), 1 is rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (down 1), and 5 are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (up 2). You can see from the chart that Fremantle and St Kilda have quite unusual pairings of fairly low offensive and fairly high defensive ratings.

The correlation between the teams’ MoSSBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.53, which remains low by historical standards.

And, finally, to MARS, which re-ranked 12 teams this week, none of them from positions 15 through 18.

Melbourne has gone top, swapping with Sydney in 3rd, leaving Geelong in 2nd despite dropping almost 3 Rating Points.

Further down we St Kilda continuing its rise, up two spots into 6th, and Port Adelaide plummeting four spots into 10th.

There are still 10 teams rated as better-than-average by MARS, with Western Bulldogs on 999, and Essendon on 998 only just missing that list.

The Rating gap between first and last currently stands at just under 51 Rating Points, which is up by about 2 Rating Points on where it was last week. The gap between first and eighth now stands at just over 17 Rating Points, which is up about 1 Rating Point compared to last week.

(A quick reminder that, historically, 1 Rating Point of difference has translated into 0.75 game points, so, for example, a team that has a MARS Rating 8 points higher than its opponent would by expected to win by about a goal on a neutral venue.)

Looking across the rankings of all three Systems and ordering the teams based on the current competition ladder, we find relatively large differences between the teams’ ladder positions and their rating system ordering for:

HIGHER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: St Kilda, Essendon, North Melbourne, GWS, and West Coast

LOWER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: Brisbane Lions, Western Bulldogs, and Geelong (and Port Adelaide if we ignore MARS).

MARS provides the most outlying rankings of the three Systems, it having the outright most-extreme ranking for 13 of the teams. MARS is especially different in terms of its Collingwood, Carlton, and Adelaide rankings.

MoSSBODS has the outright most-extreme ranking for seven of the teams, and MoSHBODS for only one.

Lastly, if we consider the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team, we find that Adelaide (5 spots) has the widest range of rankings, while 12 teams have rankings than differ by no more than 2 spots, including Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Sydney, and West Coast, for which all three Systems have the same ranking.