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Holy smokes. I complain about a quiet round, then we get one like this. Setbacks and comebacks, madness and miracles, hopes burned and hope ignited. The landscape just changed.
It was some weekend of sport all over. The Netherlands tore up Spain 5-1 in the World Cup, the All Blacks beat England by a point, and through it all we had the AFL’s round of the season.
There were wins by four points, three points, eight points and one. Even now the heart rate is still climbing down.
Four finals contenders suffered heavy blows, three easybeats found new belief, and the top of the table will be a teeth-bared tussle between two sides founding a modern rivalry.
In the most even top-end contest I can remember in a long while, five teams still look like premiership contenders and have only four spots to share. If Sydney and Port Adelaide finish top, coming fifth might be safer than third or fourth.
In this round, though, the Bombers and the Magpies lost out hardest.
We don’t yet know whether Essendon will pull together or fall apart. With ASADA notices sent to a pile of current Bombers this week, chairman Paul Little is asking that they trust the club to deal with it, while simultaneously admitting that the club doesn’t know what they were injected with.
That would hardly inspire togetherness or love for the jumper. David Zaharakis looked plenty pumped when he kicked two goals in 30 seconds to get them the late lead, but Melbourne should never have been in a position to take it back in the last 20 seconds.
Just how do you rack up 27 scoring shots to 18, or win the inside-50 count 69 to 36, and lose a match? Essendon’s wastefulness leaves them a game out of the eight when a spot was theirs.
Collingwood, meanwhile, had fourth place snatched away by a fanatical Western Bulldogs side. That dropped the Pies down to sixth, and with tough weeks ahead it’s dropped the bottom out of their top-end ambitions.
In near-synchronised Sunday afternoon intensity, both games were within a point in the final couple of minutes. The Dogs led narrowly most of the day and held on, while the Demons came back from 33 points down.
Both were ferocious in the second half, and kept their cool when the win was on the line, to produce two of the best games of football you could hope to see. It was a huge step forward for struggling clubs that should be proud.
Adelaide’s win was significant: the first time this year I’ve seen them play with full ease and flair. Imports James Podsiadly and Eddie Betts have relaxed into their new home, Tex Walker is getting going, and Patrick Dangerfield could afford a quiet game.
While their finals hopes are overplayed given their run home, for now the Crows sit a game out of the eight waiting for slip-ups.
The slippingest-uppingest team in their sights is the one they beat on Saturday, North Melbourne. Near inaudible over the crowd, like the Adelaide Oval siren, came the soft sighing sound of the Kangaroos’ season finally giving in.
After stringing two wins together with their effort last week, it was straight back to the loss column. This was the game North had to win for their own sense of credibility. A soft draw from here may see them gather the points for finals, but not the belief.
Geelong’s flogging of St Kilda was hardly unexpected, but important: the Cats gained 10 percentage points in an afternoon. They have the second-worst defensive record in the top eight this year, and need the difference redressed given the current logjam.
Fremantle were always supposed to beat Richmond, but wins on the MCG are special treats for the Dockers, and this one also boosted them to fifth spot. They remain underrated but well in the mix. The Tigers sank to the bottom four, with the Demons and Bulldogs jumping ahead.
West Coast and Gold Coast played a thriller to match any other, with Gary Ablett’s snap hitting the post in the dying seconds. It was a big result both ways: the Eagles finally beat a decent side, even if they crawled over the line; and Gold Coast missed their most winnable game in a tough six-week stretch.
They’ll come back into contention with an easier late-season run, but it may not be as easy to get that winning form back.
Greater Western Sydney’s game has no bearing on the season, but it was big for that struggling side to go to Brisbane and get a convincing win. Nor was the loss meaningless for Brisbane, who had a genuine shot at three wins in a row in an otherwise dire year.
But the final word should go to the most anticipated match so far in 2014. For weeks people have been looking forward to Port Adelaide versus the Swans – and how’s that for a sentence I never thought I’d type?
The tension has grown with each undefeated week, each clinical disposal of another opponent. The hype has grown. The talk has grown. The noise has grown. And when it all happened, it happened in just the way you would have scripted.
The full house of cheering fans. The sea of colour. A game that surged back and forth all afternoon. And of course Lance Franklin, price tags still attached, spared by the MRP, finally coming through to do those things that only he can do, for a win by less than a goal.
It reminded me vividly of 2009, when Geelong and St Kilda met with both teams 13-0 for the year. They played one of the all-time classics: a brutal contest at intense pressure, goal for goal all day, until the Saints won by six points.
Inevitably the two met again in the grand final, and that time Geelong took the thriller. This year feels similar, and it would surprise precisely no one to see Sydney and Port line up for the decider.
A new rivalry is forming as we speak, and thanks to a bizarre home-and-away schedule, we’ll see it play out again in seven weeks. Until then the Swans have bragging rights, but Port coach Ken Hinkley coached at Geelong in 2009. He knows exactly what mid-season wins are worth.