Take a breather, everybody, because if you are a fan of AFL football, there are some busy times ahead.
The weekend’s results have guaranteed the next three weeks may prove to be some of the most fascinating ever in terms of predicting who will finish where.
The importance of a top four spot cannot be understated, and the competition in 2013 is such that any team who finishes in that group has a legitimate shot at a premiership.
Speculation surrounding the likelihood of Essendon losing competition points and the ninth-placed team “earning” a spot in the finals has also opened up another set of possibilities and permutations worth talking about, and reflected in recent posts across a number of forums.
Hawthorn, Geelong and Sydney are joined in contention by Fremantle, Collingwood and Richmond in the race to finish at the top.
The overwhelming consensus is that no team outside the top four has a realistic chance of winning the AFL premiership.
This fact alone will continue to fuel endless debate on what might happen and why in the next three weeks and beyond and, with those supporters whose teams are in the mix, well justified excitement at the possibility of their team being in with a real chance of September glory.
Genuine hope for success is a wonderful thing. For fans of WA football, the focus is on the two teams that are at either end of the top-eight debate.
Fremantle have proven the genuine article this year, and are well placed to give a top two spot a real shake if they perform as expected and results around them prove beneficial.
There has been much talk of the Dockers soft run in to the finals, with their last three games against sides they are expected to beat, not preparing them well enough for the hardness required in September
But if Fremantle have proved one thing under Ross Lyon it is that they play disciplined, accountable, finals-style football week-in week-out.
The Dockers ability to play to a system, regardless of who is on the field, has been their great strength in a season in which some of their most valuable players have missed games through injury.
This should hold them in good stead, despite the quality of the opponents coming up, and if they can stick to their style of play and handle the pressure finals bring, they are not without a chance should they finish in the right position.
Let’s not forget that Luke McPharlin is still to come back into the side and Mathew Pavlich, back from injury and suspension, will have had time to find match fitness and touch come the first week in September.
And the West Coast Eagles, having soundly beaten Essendon on Sunday, may just find themselves with the opportunity to benefit should the Bombers be sanctioned as expected and they continue to improve.
A moment should be spared for Bombers fans, who have endured a torrid season of doubt and innuendo off the field and are now experiencing an equally bleak one on it.
Whatever your beliefs regarding culpability of the Essendon organisation, the fans are not at fault.
Whichever team benefit’s from any loss of premiership points to the beleaguered club will take it, and so will their followers.
It’s an outside chance, but the Eagles are playing perhaps as well as they have all season at the moment, and are capable of causing an upset or two in the next few weeks that may end up meaning something should the Bombers fall.
That they have the chance at all should be a welcome change for supporters who thought their season was over.
It may still be, but they will take the chance.
Should the Eagles surprise everyone and make it, they will take a great deal of confidence into the post-season break and approach next year with genuine optimism, despite the likelihood of being bundled out in the first week.
It will also be some story, and likely to fuel even further debate.
Either way, fans of the WA AFL clubs have enough speculation to keep them occupied for the immediate future should their penchant be for indulging in any or all of the hearsay and conjecture, opinions and fallacies, and general excitement of the last three rounds of the 2013 AFL Premiership season.
They are joined by their counterparts in Melbourne, in Sydney and (in these times of AFL expansion, pay-television and multi-platform media) around the world.
What these fans have in common is the genuine hope of a grand finish to their season, and that’s all you can really ask for.
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At least they could see the funny side!
At least one of these was surely worth a second look!
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