What was delivered on the weekend just passed will be remembered come September as the set of games that influenced our perceptions of this season more than any other.

It started on Friday and ended on Sunday – five games that opened up a whole world of possibilities, made you rethink your order of play, or confirmed what you already suspected.

It can be neatly summarised by one thought exercise: who is the premiership favourite?

There isn’t one. The promise of an even season has most certainly been delivered.

As it stands, six of the top eight are separated by a single win, and are at worst nine percentage points out of a top-four spot. The Eagles are the odd one out, an extra win back but well within the hunt from a percentage point of view.

The phrase ‘throw a blanket over the field’ is overused, but it is appropriate here. It means that every game where two top-eight teams face off is of the utmost importance – to secure the four points for yourself, but just as importantly to keep them off your opponents’ balance sheets.

We had three such games over the weekend, and two others which influenced the emergent order of the 2016 AFL season. Here are some thoughts on each, and the most important signals amidst the copious amounts of noise.

Friday night, Essendon vs Hawthorn
Jay Croucher said it best in early May: “come at the king, you best not miss”.

Hawthorn entered Round 12 as an 8-3 side with the worst percentage of all of the current top eight. They leave it having won five of their past six since being embarrassed by the new kids on the block in Round 6.

If everyone was chasing the Hawks in March, and they were, then the competition may come to rue the three straight three-point wins Hawthorn managed to eek out over the Dogs, Saints and Crows earlier in the season.

Essendon aren’t much chop, sure, but neither were Carlton when the Hawks steamrolled them on a Friday night in Round 17 last season. That victory capped an eight-game winning streak by Hawthorn, as they ascended from the middle to the top of the ladder. The Hawks were back to their ruthlessly efficient best: disposal at 80 per cent, 133 marks (123 uncontested), and 66 inside 50 entries.

The mark tally is the critical statistic here – Hawthorn were ranked 12th for marks per game heading into Round 12, with just under 82 a game, while Essendon were ranked dead last in conceding 101 per game. 133 is larger than both of these numbers.

They were allowed to do what they pleased, and they did exactly that. The noise is that any team would have beaten the rapidly fading Dons, and that’s probably true. But the manner of the win was a Hawthorn public execution special.

A lesser side, the side that many thought Hawthorn had become this year, would have put up a garden variety 43 point victory on the whiteboard and considered it a job well done. The Hawks issued a decree: come at the king, you best not miss.

They’ve risen to fifth on the ladder, and a victory against North Melbourne this Friday night would mean they end the round in the top four – barring a draw in the Cats-Dogs Veterinary Hospital Cup. A 40-odd point victory, plus a narrow win to the Dogs and a Melbourne vanquishing of Sydney would put the Hawks on top.

It’s not likely, sure, but it is in play. All I can think is that we’re witnessing another in a series of different paths to the last game of the season by one of the greatest sides to play at a professional level.

Saturday afternoon, Port Adelaide vs Western Bulldogs
Mark June 11 in your diaries; this match will be a contender for game of the season.

Ahead of the game, markets considered this one nothing more than a coin flip, which says more about the Port Adelaide Power’s resurgence in the past month than it does about the fortunes of the Western Bulldogs.

An unlikely bottom-six finisher after five rounds, Port have captured some of their 2014 form over the past four weeks. Much of this comes down to effort – moving from zero to average has its benefits – and a fair share can also be attributed to a cushy slate of games. A smacking of the Lions gave way to two close losses, to the Blues away and West Coast at home, which were then followed by comprehensive wins against Melbourne and Collingwood.

In and of itself it wasn’t quite enough to say the Power had returned to their best, but it was close.

Port have turned around their contested possession (-7.3 per game in Rounds 1-6 to +1.5 per game in Rounds 7-12), uncontested possession (-30.8 per game to +14.0 per game) and clearance win (-8.5 per game to +0.5 per game) numbers in the past six weeks, with an Offensive Efficiency Rating of +20.7 (up from -1.1).

Port Adelaide’s game, another close loss at home to a top-four contender, was enough to suggest the Power have a decent shot at breaking the Berlin Wall separating the finalists from the also rans.

But for the Dogs, the gritty win again proved the Chicken Littles that call them an Etihad team wrong – or at the very least threw that line of thinking further into doubt. They’ve now won three of their four games outside of their most comfortable surrounds, with the lone blemish against the impervious Giants. Sure, they’re a nine point better team at the Docklands versus other venues, but all told the Dogs doing enough away from home to put themselves firmly in the frame for a double chance.

The last quarter of this game was immense in this respect. Port were up by nine points, having wrestled the game from the teeth of the Dogs with a 20-1 burst in the final five or so minutes of the third quarter. A home crowd, and the prospect of ending the round outside the eight on percentage alone, should have been the equivalent of rounding Tasman Island with a wet sail for the Power.

Instead, the Dogs came out and put on three straight in a rampant five minutes of footy, then turtled up to grind out the win. They held on despite four of their first-choice back six being on the sidelines. The game embodied everything that has made the Dogs a great team in the past 15 months.

Saturday night, West Coast vs Adelaide
Next.

What? Nothing notable happened in this game. Nope. Nothing at all.

No, I’m not concerned about West Coast’s season. I’m not worried that they have now lost all five games against top seven opponents. First scoreless quarter in their history? Nothing to worry about. Everything is fine. Everything is OK. Everything will be OK.

Nic Naitanui out for two months? They’ll be fine, it’s not as though the one reliable player West Coast have had this year is named Nic Naitanui. A-OK, everyone.

For Adelaide though, phwoar, what a way to confirm your credentials. When the Crows get what they want, or come up against 22 royal-blue-wearing wet lettuce leaves, they are an insatiable scoring force.

In the final quarter, Adelaide put up 6.5 on 23 inside 50s – in the end West Coast were fortunate to have lost by 28 points.

We’ve been lauding Adelaide’s forward line group all year, but just as critical is the flexibility the Crows have built down back. Daniel Talia, Kyle Hartigan and Jake Lever are all big guys, but play fast and are adept at switching when the ball comes in fast. Kyle Cheney is emerging as an excellent intercept mark, while there are pictures of Rory Laird and Brodie Smith under Defender – Rebounding in the Australian rules dictionary.

Adelaide have used a league-wide low of 27 players so far this year; they know who they are, and the rest of the competition knows what happens if you give the Crows a centimetre. They kick goals.

Adelaide's first goal: T Walker executed one of the great release handballs to set Eddie on his way #AFLEaglesCrows pic.twitter.com/IeRQRJgjnG

— Ryan Buckland (@RyanBuckland7) June 12, 2016

We should be worried about West Coast now, though. Indeed, if the Eagles had lost their close game against Port Adelaide in Round 9, the two would be equal on the ladder, with percentage keeping the Power out of the eight. You can call them flat-track bullies, or front runners, or just middle of the road – any description fits, really.

Wasting everyone below you and losing to everyone above you is a recipe for a middle-of-the-ladder finish, and if Port Adelaide continue to play as they have in recent weeks, the Eagles are vulnerable.

Saturday night, Geelong vs North Melbourne
This is getting out of hand.

This Selwood-Dangerfield combination is getting out of hand. One example from #AFLCatsNorth #AFL pic.twitter.com/uIm5hB0GEW

— Ryan Buckland (@RyanBuckland7) June 13, 2016

Rohan Connolly from the Fairfax presses wrote a great piece lauding what he called Dangerwood – the AFL’s new power couple, forged in the fires of Patrick Dangerfield’s desire to play for his home team, who are definitely made for each other.

Let’s not retrace that ground here because if you watch football, you know the story. Instead, let’s celebrate North Melbourne, who once again hung with a more highly fancied opponent for significant portions of a game.

The Roos have made hanging about a habit in the past couple of years – scrapping into the eight, winning September games with skinny margins, and this year, getting ahead on the wins ledger to such an extent that a coast to the end of the year is not only achievable, it’s to be expected.

North Melbourne’s biggest star is probably Brent Harvey. That says more about this team than meets the eye – their 20-year veteran is their most flashy and consistently noticeable player, and looks to be the one most likely to make things happen. Harvey is on track to kick the most goals of his career; currently pushing two goals a game, while still disposing of the ball 20 times.

The other 21 guys just play their role, and play it well. Nowhere else could Michael Firrito, Drew Petrie, Scott Thompson and Jarrad Waite be considered adequate key position pillars, save perhaps Fremantle, but here we are. North Melbourne are a good football team.

Dangerfield’s influence on this game cannot be understated. Sticking within five goals – though the Kangas kicked an impossible 12.2 even though they took most of their shots from very close to the 50 metre arc or the left hand wing – can be considered a fair performance.

It doesn’t get much easier for North in the next two weeks ahead of their bye, with a date against the awoken Hawthorn bleeding into a six-day break trip to face the nuclear Adelaide off of their bye. They limp to the bye with three straight losses, and yet, they’ll be well ensconced in the top eight.

Being called ‘good’ is often a sneaky diss, but this year, good looks like it’s going to be enough to have your September ticket stamped. While a top-four finish would be nice for the Roos, it might not be required given the eight will be split 50-50 Victorian-non-Victorian. This might be North Melbourne’s last chance, and they’re doing their damnedest to make the most of it.

Sunday afternoon, Greater Western Sydney vs Sydney
The weekend ended with the most surprisingly inevitable victory of the weekend. The Giants should have won this game, and the smart money was all in on that outcome. Yet the hurdle was set throughout the week: Greater Western Sydney can only be considered a genuine threat if they beat their big brother.

From the first bounce, this was a pulsating affair, with both sides keen to move quickly out of congestion or indeed avoid congestion altogether. That descriptor usually implies high scores were had, but there were just ten goals kicked in the first half. The Giants, as has been their modus operandi this year, were relentless in their directness, and it wore the Swans down in the end – injuries to Kurt Tippett and Gary Rohan didn’t help.

Dylan Shiel’s emergence as a top-ten player was also somewhat inevitable, but the pace at which it’s happened this year is surprising. Sydney’s Tom Mitchell curtailed his volume of possessions – limiting Shiel to 24 touches – but not the influence of them. He’s a freight train crossed with a black swan, and he’s still a year or two from hitting his peak. Then again, half of this team is a year or two, or three or four, from hitting their individual apexes.

By the time the final 15 minutes rolled by, the Giants burst through Sydney’s figurative dam wall. GWS entered their attacking zone 18 times, and kicked seven of the last eight scores, to get home by 42 points. For a team that had lost two games by a combined 11 points – one of those losses coming after the siren, too – and that had outgunned all that came before them, it was a heavy defeat.

The Giants’ victory against the Swans was inevitable, yes, but the manner was a surprise. We really shouldn’t let ourselves be surprised at what the Giants can do anymore.

Another fantabulous round awaits
We’re headed for the first of three bye rounds this weekend, but through luck, the dark arts or some combination of these, seven of the top eight sides will be suiting up. Friday night’s North vs Hawks match-up will set the tone, before the stars and scrubs of Geelong collide with the polar opposites of the Western Bulldogs on Saturday night.

Sunday twilight, between the Dons and Giants, might struggle to draw 10,000 fans through the turnstiles, and could be the first time in history the AFL employs the open roof as an equalisation measure. Still, I can’t wait to see what a team full of pacey, precise runners can do against a team of witches hats; the line is set at near enough to 12 goals, which won’t be enough.

As Cam Rose said yesterday, this is the most thrilling season in recent memory, and long may it continue.