With both Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs getting wins over the weekend, the top-8 looks as tight as ever.
Sydney are slightly out in front of the pack as the best rated team in the comp, but with the typical interstate Home Ground Advantage being in the order of 90-110 FFSS pts, the truth is, if any of the teams in the top-8 were to play eachother, our best bet is almost always “whoever is at home”.
The middle-to-bottom of the table is a bit more spread out, but no team has really been able to stake a genuine claim at being “finals level”. Port Adelaide are once again rated slightly above average1 after beating Melbourne. But following their numerous slip-ups this year, we can’t confidently say we’d rate the Power against any of the top-8. Even at Adelaide Oval, against the lowest rated top-8 side, GWS, they’d still be at very best a coin-flip.
Richmond continue their climb back up the ladder after falling in a heap in the first 7 weeks. A win against North this week will see them ranked back up above average.
Carlton have managed to claw it’s way out of the basement dweller teams over the last month and a bit. They now sit rated similarly to other potential “trouble” teams such as Melbourne, Collingwood, St Kilda and Fremantle. Geelong certainly found out the hard way the Carlton can be trouble. The Cats and the Blues exchanged 33 ratings points this week. A huge revaluing of our estimates of each team.
