Thrilling to a season of even magnificence

All season, much football talk has been about how even the race for this year’s premiership is, and as we hit the bye rounds, it has never been more of a truism than it is right now.

This is best summed up by the fact that the top two sides are coming off a loss, and North Melbourne, a game clear on top of the ladder, are the least favoured among the current top eight to take out the flag.

As we stand, there is no way to accurately predict who will be holding the premiership cup aloft on grand final day.

North’s vulnerabilities have been exposed twice in the last three weeks with losses to contenders Sydney and Geelong, which has dented public confidence in their ability to win three or four finals.

Losing to the Swans at the SCG is no disgrace – better sides than the Roos will do it – and they were stiff to run into a Dangerfield special on Saturday night, not helped by their two toughest inside players, Andrew Swallow and Ben Cunnington, being lost early and impacted significantly by injury respectively.

They won’t start favourite in any of their next three matches, against Hawthorn at Etihad, or in trips to Adelaide to face the Crows or Perth to face the Eagles, and now face a tough ask to hold onto a top-four spot.

Geelong and GWS are the two sides with the most razzle-dazzle, both in the style of their play and the hyperbole that accompanies their best performances.

There’s not much between them based on their two clashes this year, with GWS winning in Round 2 by 13 points, and Geelong emerging ten points to the good in Round 11. Both games were won by the home team, and it would be fascinating to see them play off on the neutral(ish) ground of the MCG in September.

The Giants have the sharpest and most piercing ball movement of any side, as the Swans, Hawks and Dogs can attest, while the Cats are the most explosive thanks, of course, to Dangerfield and Selwood. If those two get off the chain, Geelong has enough quality elsewhere to make it count.

GWS will have to prove they aren’t too inexperienced to win in September, while Geelong have to eliminate their alarming flat patches, such as those that gave away matches against Collingwood and Carlton, losses which may still cost them a top two spot.

Sydney tick the most boxes in terms of genuine contender, given their blend of 2016 form, big finals experience and the presence of Lance Franklin on their list.

Their biggest concerns are the six week injury to Kurt Tippett, which may prove to be a season-ender, and their continued midfield lapses against good sides, which expose their defence and allow runs of goals to be kicked against them.

They don’t have any stone-cold locks in terms of wins on the run home, given they only play two of the bottom six, and they are the freshly in-form Fremantle in Perth and the Swans bogey side in Richmond, so they won’t have it all their own way in the race for the top two.

Adelaide and the Bulldogs played arguably the game of the 2015 in the elimination final last year, one that must have partly sparked the overall nature of attacking footy in 2016, and both sides have gone to another level since.

The Crows are a genuine flag threat, and in the year of offence, no side is more potent than them.

The most instructive part of their win over West Coast on the weekend was the way they implemented their press, winning the inside 50 count 65-35, generating repeat entries by not giving West Coast any freedom to transition out of defence.

The Crows got a first-hand look at this when defeated by the Western Bulldogs at Etihad, where the Dogs did the same to them, winning the inside 50 count 68-37.

The Dogs still maintain the best defence in the league, a feat all the more impressive given the injuries and lack of player continuity they’ve had in the back half of the ground.

The Dogs have only lost three games, to GWS away, North and Hawthorn, by an average of 15 points. They are right in the premiership race, and none of the other finalists apply themselves with more ferocity, heart or grit, attributes which will take them a long way in September.

Hawthorn are the old perennial, but have been the least impressive, getting smoked by GWS a month and a half ago, but also well beaten by Geelong and Sydney, and only just overcoming Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs earlier in the season.

15-20 minutes of football isn’t going to get it done in September, regardless of how many times they’ve been there before, and their build into four quarters of consistently strong effort may have started with the training run against Essendon on Friday night.

West Coast are the team least likely, and it’s fair to say last year’s grand finalists have been overtaken by six other clubs, but this is in large part due to their own regression.

They played a good side at home for the first time this season, and Adelaide pulverised them from halfway through the last term, kicking the last eight goals of the game.

Adrian Polykandrites posted a table on Twitter that shows how far the Eagles are behind the rest of the contenders, when assessing their records against each other. We can now lay to rest any doubt that they are the biggest flat track bullies we’ve seen in the AFL for some time.

This is the most thrilling season in recent memory, and the deeper we go the harder it is to split them all. There has barely been an off-field scandal, and even those to have popped up haven’t taken as much oxygen given the quality of football we’d rather be talking about.

Long may it continue.