Round 12 brought us some of the best individual performances of the year to date, but also some of its most controversial moments.
Here are the big takeaways from another huge weekend of footy.
1. Is there a better clutch player than Patrick Cripps?
If you want to be a top eight or a top four team, you generally need to be strong around clearances. If you want to win finals and eventually premierships, your midfield needs to lift for critical moments to dominate that area when it counts.
In the last quarter on Thursday night, Carlton's midfield stood up like few others would be capable to take Port Adelaide to the cleaners and streak away to victory.
They kicked a total of 43 points from clearances in the last term alone, a seismic total that blew the Power off the park.
The best part for Carlton was they didn't have that sort of midfield control all night, but while their stoppage game was down in the first half they found other ways to score, through intercepts and turnovers.
But when crunch time arrived, Patrick Cripps and Sam Walsh got busy. It was a jaw-dropping performance, and a statement win for a team ready to make some noise in the run towards September.
ABC player of the year votes (voted for by ABC Sport radio commentators):
3. Sam Walsh (Carlton)
2. Tom De Koning (Carlton)
1. Zac Williams (Carlton)
2. Maybe Marcus Bontempelli
Who do you take — Patrick Cripps or Marcus Bontempelli? Divide up their careers, their games this weekend or even their individual final terms in round 12 and you'll find them tough to split.
As inspirational and influential as Cripps was on Thursday, the Bont might have topped him on Friday night.
He was assisted wonderfully by the tenacious Adam Treloar, but the Bulldogs don't win that game if not for the brilliance of their captain. They might not even come close.
It became clear early in the match that Bontempelli and Nick Daicos were going to be locked in a master-and-apprentice-style duel for the duration, and the individual winner was also likely to play for the winning team.
Daicos won the first half, but Bontempelli stole the show in the second. Both are remarkable footballers, surely among the top five in the game right now, but for the moment anyway the crown belongs to Bont.
ABC player of the year votes:
3. Marcus Bontempelli (Western Bulldogs)
2. Nick Daicos (Collingwood)
1. Adam Treloar (Western Bulldogs)
3. An underrated Hawk pushes his All Australian case again
A whole bunch of mid-year All Australian teams have begun filtering out through the media, but you'd have to go a long way to find one with Dylan Moore's name on it.
That's probably not surprising, but there hasn't been a better small forward in the AFL than Hawthorn's infectious spark plug. If you tally up his goals, score involvements and tackles inside 50 there is no contemporary who sits above him in all those metrics.
Loading Twitter content
But he's more than that to Hawthorn. His relentless energy, passion and creativity sums up everything that has been so bright about Hawthorn over the past month and a bit. Without Moore doing the dirty work, the Blake Hardwick experiment might not have worked so well and Jack Ginnivan wouldn't have had as much freedom to showcase his talents.
Five goals against the Crows allowed Moore to finally get his flowers, but even to the death he was thinking of his teammates — he had a sixth on his boot, but instead passed to Jack Gunston so the veteran could have his own golden moment in game 250.
He's an absolute gem, and part of a team fast becoming one of the stories of the year.
ABC player of the year votes:
3. Dylan Moore (Hawthorn)
2. Will Day (Hawthorn)
1. Jack Ginnivan (Hawthorn)
4. Reid brings the heat, then falls victim to it
It was Harley Reid's frightening appetite for the contest and single-minded commitment to physicality that inspired one of the best individual quarters of the year and put West Coast in the box seat at half-time against St Kilda.
It was that same hunger to hurt that is set to rule him out of the Eagles' next two games against North Melbourne and Essendon, and the Rising Star race as well.
Loading Twitter content
Reid is going to spend his entire career treading the line. He is going to hurt a lot of opponents, and while most of the time it will be perfectly fair and legal, on occasion it might tread into the realm of the suspendable.
His tackle on Darcy Wilson was overzealous but not an outrageous crime, and even five years ago would have gone down as yet another highlight on his already bloated reel. But in 2024, priorities have changed and that sort of action is understandably punished.
St Kilda won this game when Marcus Windhager went to tag Reid in the second half and none of his Eagles teammates were able to either fill the void or offer him enough protection to keep him firing. Considering it was his 11th game of AFL footy, expecting him to single-handedly win it for West Coast while being tagged seems a little optimistic.
But while Reid was left frustrated, the running power and contested strength of the Saints reigned supreme. Their season isn't going to plan, but they have again proved there is a clear gap between them and the true rebuilders of the league.
ABC player of the year votes:
3. Mason Wood (St Kilda)
2. Jeremy McGovern (West Coast)
1. Josh Battle (St Kilda)
5. Cats snap losing streak as youngsters shine against Tigers
It doesn't matter if there is substance to a victorious performance when you're coming off four straight defeats, as a win is a win.
After a losing run in May, the Cats finally broke their drought when they got past a spirited Tigers outfit to triumph by five goals at Kardinia Park on Saturday night.
At one stage during the second quarter, the Cats trailed the Tigers by 29 points, but they shifted gears after half-time and finished over the top of the lowly placed opponents.
It won't go down as a season-defining performance, but the four points will be a confidence booster for the Cats, who had won their opening seven matches.
They didn't need to rely on their more experienced campaigners to get the win, as Ollie Dempsey – playing just his 19th senior match — was among those who stood up when it counted, with three goals and 27 possessions.
Fellow youngsters Max Holmes (29 disposals, one goal) and Tanner Bruhn (26 disposals, one goal) also impressed for the triumphant Cats.
The Cats will need to produce a four-quarter performance in their next match against the Swans at the SCG, as the ladder leaders won't let them off the hook if they make another slow start.
ABC player of the year votes:
3. Ollie Dempsey (Geelong)
2. Max Holmes (Geelong)
1. Liam Baker (Richmond)
6. Freo's Top End trouncing of Dees flips the season on its head
How do you make sense of a game like that? Fremantle's 92-point win over Melbourne was so comprehensive, so complete that it has changed the prospects of both teams heading into the second half of the season.
After 12 rounds, only Sydney has a better percentage than Fremantle. Last week's draw against Collingwood means that doesn't really help the Dockers a whole lot in terms of ladder position, but it may give us a more accurate representation of where the team is at.
Defence has rarely been a problem for the Dockers under Justin Longmuir but the consistent knock has been on their scoring power. Hard to reconcile that justified criticism with the team that just put 22 goals through the Demons.
Now if you were to back one of those teams to grasp a top-four spot by the end of the year, you'd have to look at Freo. That's not just a reaction to one game, but the fact they have been a more consistent and more predictable side — for better and worse — than Melbourne this year.
The Dees? They looked completely bereft out there. The effort stopped, the ideas ran out and the Dockers completely humiliated them for four quarters. It's tough to see a road back to contention.
ABC player of the year votes:
3. Sam Switkowski (Fremantle)
2. Hayden Young (Fremantle)
1. Josh Treacy (Fremantle)
7. Rowell the man for a big Suns occasion
Gold Coast-Essendon on a Sunday twilight would have traditionally been a pretty easy game to give a miss, but if you sat this one out you certainly missed out.
This was easily one of the most hard-hitting, full-blooded games of the season, between two teams who sensed the potential implications of a win and threw everything at it.
Loading Twitter content
And there's no surprise that in a game of that nature, Matt Rowell was the one who put his hand up and made the telling difference in the last quarter. It came down to a clearance battle for much of the term, but very few of them were slick and clean takeaways.
It suited the frame and ferocity of Rowell perfectly, and as teammates and opponents tired in the last he remained steadfast in his dedication. Rowell — and the Bombers' wastefulness in front of goal all night — was the telling factor in this critical result.
ABC player of the year votes:
3. Noah Anderson (Gold Coast)
2. Sam Collins (Gold Coast)
1. Nick Hind (Essendon)
