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In a round where the expected generally transpired, there was really only one significant win and two losses.
Greater Western Sydney and Melbourne would have scored the headlines had they managed to upset Port Adelaide and Hawthorn respectively, but they will both have rued some muffed chances late in the game.
All we can take from those games is that two struggling sides are building some resilience, while two top sides were able to hold off challenges where other teams this year have not.
Hawthorn and Collingwood made big ladder moves, claiming second and fourth spots, but did so with wins that should have been routine.
North Melbourne, Fremantle and Essendon had predictable wins that only maintained the status quo in the middle portion of the ladder.
The biggest win was also the biggest win, by which I mean to say that the biggest margin also informed the most important game in terms of the season.
No, the only side who flew from this round on a massive updraft of momentum were the Sydney Swans, way back on Thursday night.
There are things that don’t happen in Australian Rules football these days, and beating Geelong by a hundred points is one of them. It hasn’t happened since 2006 – the season that almost cost dual premiership coach Mark Thompson his job – and the time before that was in 1998.
But with Geelong starting the round in second place and the Swans having just regained fourth, Sydney destroyed the Cats in every department of the game. Kurt Tippett, Lance Franklin and Adam Goodes all fired, while nine runners had 26 possessions or more.
Admittedly the Cats were dealt two six-day breaks between trips to Perth and Sydney – hardly a fair hand – and lost two of their three best defenders injured. A loss was on the cards, but not on this scale.
Records fell in all directions, including Sydney racking up the second-most inside-50s of all time, and Geelong recording their lowest three-quarter-time score since 1977.
But the two clubs would have been interested in more basic numbers: Sydney in their expensive forward trio kicking 12 goals, and Geelong in the fact they’ve now lost three of their last five games.
The Swans are now the hot story of the league, and in a sentence that I never thought I would jot down as a football writer, the entire league is holding its breath for the Sydney versus Port Adelaide match in a fortnight’s time.
The Adelaide Crows had a good win for them, beating the much-improved Gold Coast to move up to ninth, and reminding us they’re not out of finals contention after a dire start. They’ll struggle to crack the eight though, with imminent trips to play Fremantle and Essendon, then a Showdown with Port.
And of course we can’t neglect the Brisbane Lions, as the only team in the bottom eight to win a match this round. Their second win of the season doesn’t get them off the bottom of the ladder, but it will have been a boost for morale.
Two northern Carlton-supporting friends of mine took their boy to his his first AFL game. “I imagine it’s only because we’re going to the football that it’s cold, grey and raining in Brisbane,” wrote one. “Lions don’t stand a chance in these conditions.”
Unfortunately for them, not only was that untrue, but the young feller rebelled and chose Brisbane as his team, scoring a giant inflatable hand for his trouble. No one can accuse him of being a bandwagon jumper.
Both Richmond and Carlton fans love to lament each loss as the nadir, but little else could be expected from teams that haven’t shown up at all this season.
Richmond’s loss was a little more meaningful, perhaps, squandering the chance to turn last week’s thrashing of GWS into a catalyst for some renewed energy.
I went to the Dreamtime game at the MCG, and from high in the stands you could clearly see how easily Essendon made space and created targets, and how the Tigers struggled to get the ball past half back.
Really there were only two important losses in season terms. For most of this season, Geelong have been lurking around top spot. Now they’re dumped to sixth, with their positive percentage obliterated.
Is this a turning point for the Cats? It could be the game that makes them come back with a vengeance, or the one that knocks the stuffing out of them. Or is it an anomaly exacerbated by a tough run of fixtures?
Geelong should beat Carlton this Friday, but suddenly it looms as a dangerous game.
Then there was Gold Coast, blowing the biggest opportunity of the round. Even in Adelaide, a win over the Crows was a very good chance given their patchy form. That would have boosted the Suns to second on the ladder, four points clear of Hawthorn.
The chance squandered, they sit in fifth, and set to dip further next weekend after a visit from Sydney.
Aside from those two, the rest of the top eight will be playing teams at the bottom end of the draw in Round 12, so most will gain ground on the Suns.
When pushing for a debut finals series, a team has to take every chance afforded them. Gold Coast have a tricky few weeks ahead, and may not yet have the poise to recover.