AFL Power Rankings: Round 7 2013

RISING UP

They may not have jumped many spots in the rankings this week, but Adelaide and Gold Coast had the largest gains in ranking points. Adelaide had a mammoth win on the road against the GWS Giants, while Gold Coast had a big win away against Melbourne. Gold Coast now has its best rating ever.

FALLING DOWN

Conversely, while they did not fall down any spots – because they did not have anywhere left to fall – Melbourne and GWS dropped significantly further away from the rest of the competition in terms of ranking points.

ALSO OF NOTE

Essendon is now 10^th. The reasons for the disparity between the Bombers’ 2013 ladder position and their ranking position were covered here, and here, and were also discussed over at AFL Footy Maths. Essentially, given the way these ranking systems currently work, Essendon’s five weeks this season of very good performances are offset to a large extent by its collective instances from late last season of bad performances, even if that evidence is decreasing in importance by the week. Every rankings system has its outliers … and indeed, the Dons may prove yet not to be one.

(And while I shouldn’t keep pointing out ‘weird’ things with my own rankings, the gain in points for Carlton and the loss in points for St. Kilda might be noticed. What I’ll say there is that, as other teams’ ratings change, then the ‘worth’ of the Blues’ and Saints’ recent performances are adjusted, and those adjustments outweighed the impact from the Saints’ win this week, which was slight given the close margin. In the Saints' case, their past four opponents before Carlton dropped in ‘worth’ this week, while Carlton was largely helped by the Crows’ improvement.)  

1 (Last week: 1) Hawthorn 38.9 (38.3)

2 (2) Geelong 24.4 (24.4)
3 (3) Sydney 20.6 (24.2)
4 (4) Fremantle 18.8 (18.5)
5 (5) West Coast 15.6 (15.4)
6 (7) Adelaide 15.5 (11.0)
7 (8) Carlton 11.3 (11.0)
8 (6) Collingwood 11.3 (13.9)
9 (10) Richmond 10.5 (7.8)
10 (9) Essendon 7.6 (10.0)
11 (11) North Melbourne 4.7 (5.6)
12 (12) St. Kilda 3.1 (5.4)
13 (13) Port Adelaide -10.5 (-8.0)
14 (14) Brisbane -22.5 (-21.8)
15 (15) Gold Coast -24.1 (-29.0)
16 (16) Western Bulldogs -32.2 (-31.2)
17 (17) Melbourne -56.2 (-50.3)
18 (18) Greater Western Sydney -65.6 (-59.5)