• Farewell, T-shirt Tommy: footy mourns a coaching genius
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• Around the state leagues: Eagle mids rising while Beams returns

THIS was an interminably long round of football, what with the Friday night opening, the Monday night finish and just four games in between, but events over the first 20 hours of the weekend confirmed that this is shaping as the most open premiership race in years.

Forget the betting markets, which have Hawthorn still as the outright premiership favourite. This was the weekend where Port Adelaide entered discussions for the flag and the Sydney Swans flexed their considerable muscles.

And the Hawks? They're in a spot of bother.

The Power gave us more of the same on Saturday afternoon against Fremantle. Four quarters of relentless running that eventually overpowered the Dockers. We keep coming back to Ken Hinkley's pre-season promise – to beat Port you are going to have to run hard for four quarters. When the crunch came early in the final quarter, Port ran harder and had 10 of the first inside 50s to put the game away.

WATCH: Port Adelaide's scintillating finish against Freo

Add to Port's superior fitness the brilliance of Chad Wingard and an instantly imposing home ground advantage at Adelaide Oval, which he has now been re-branded as the 'Portress', and you have the most exciting team in the AFL, one that is winning the hearts and minds of neutral supporters around Australia.

Wingard's five-goal haul sparked a social media frenzy on Saturday evening as debate raged where his first 50 games rates when compared to some of the greats. Essendon's John Coleman would have him covered, while Chris Judd, Joel Selwood, Chris Grant and even Allen Jakovich entered the discussion.

Wingard is tracking nicely in the Judd and Selwood direction and at a time when not much else was going right for the Power, how fortuitous it was at the end of 2011 that the local boy lasted until the sixth selection at the NAB AFL National Draft. It is these quirks of fate - the same as Hinkley running a close second for countless senior coaching positions before finally getting the nod at Alberton - that might one day be the central theme in the story of the next Port Adelaide premiership.

WATCH: Saturday showreel - Chad Wingard

With respect to this year's premiership, the Swans are now back in the hunt. Opinion is divided as to the merits of Friday night's 19-point win over Hawthorn given how injury-depleted were the reigning premiers, but in every key statistic save for Lance Franklin's goalkicking accuracy, the Swans were well ahead.

Dan Hannebery, Josh Kennedy, Luke Parker, Kieren Jack and Jarrad McVeigh were all outstanding, while the Kurt Tippett-Franklin combination shows tremendous promise. On paper, the Swans have the best forward line in the competition and a midfield as good as any, and at 5-3 after four straight wins and with a squad that only now is coming together, there is considerable upside for the Swans.

WATCH: Lance Franklin's eventful Friday night

Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson has his concerns, as indicated by his chippy performance in the post-match media conference. The 145-point belting of St Kilda the week before was a waste of time given the injury toll it extracted and he now faces a month before any of Sam Mitchell, Cyril Rioli and Brian Lake are back in the side. And Jarryd Roughead will deservedly miss the Port Adelaide game after the bye through suspension after he lost control of his senses and bumped Ben McGlynn in the head.

The Hawks are a brilliant side, but many of their weapons are on the wrong side of 30, prone to injury and slow to recover. The season is just young enough so that the Hawks can get all their key players back in plenty of time before the finals,  and their draw opens up somewhat after the Port clash, but they would want to hope that for the rest of the year the injury gods are ready to turn their attention elsewhere.


Buddy Franklin celebrates the Swans' win against his old side, Hawthorn. Picture: AFL Media


QUESTION TIME

Monday night football or Thursday night football?
The AFL is giving Thursday nights every opportunity to work with a series of cracking fixtures that included the Richmond-Carlton match that is usually played on opening night, Sydney-Geelong in a few weeks and this Thursday, the Adelaide-Collingwood clash at Adelaide Oval, the first blockbuster for the Crows at their new home ground. And given it sold out weeks in advance, compared to the paltry crowd of 26,708 at Etihad Stadium on Monday night, you would have to say that Thursdays are a winner. This is the year for the AFL to try new timeslots ahead of the negotiations for the new TV deal, but the success of Monday night football will always depend on how the Saints and the Blues are faring and for now, they're not much chop.

Remember also that the sole reason this Monday night match is staged is because no Victorian-based club wants to play home games on Mothers' Day. Since 2010, when 42,866 attended the first Saints-Blues clash the night after Mothers' Day, the crowds have steadily declined. It would not surprise at all next year if the AFL shakes up this fixture or decides to drop it altogether in favour of another Thursday night clash.

How best do we remember Tom Hafey?
His coaching philosophy was based around supreme fitness and a simple game plan that revolved around long bombs to the forward line, which in his case was the supremely talented Royce Hart. It was a philosophy not unlike that of John Kennedy, who coached Hawthorn at the same time and what is quite remarkable is that these two coaches who were similarly Spartan in their approach, never met in a finals series despite the fact that the Hawks and Tigers were perennial finals contenders at the same time.

Hafey ended up coaching four clubs – Richmond, Collingwood, Geelong and the Sydney Swans – and while he left the Cats for the Swans mainly because Swans owner Geoffrey Edelsten made him an offer he couldn't refuse, he was treated quite shabbily at the end by the other three, particularly the Tigers once he lost the support of powerbroker Graeme Richmond and Collingwood, where he was sacked in the middle of 1982. But if Hafey ever held a grudge, he kept it to himself and he spent the last 25 years of his life as a football evangelist, promoting both the game and his fastidiously healthy lifestyle. Hundreds of clubs and thousands of footballers around Australia would have had Hafey "take training for a night" and would have walked away better for the experience. It is not just the AFL who should acknowledge his passing this weekend.



Ashley Browne: There's no escaping that a day or night at the footy is becoming more expensive, irrespective of whether you attend a blockbuster – replete with more expensive tickets – or a 'mockbuster' where you might have an entire bay of seats to yourself. So what to do? There are economies, such as buying memberships at the start of the season, or bringing food from home. But try telling the kids they can't have a pie and a drink; it is a big part of the footy experience. There's no real answer, except to say that at some stage, market forces will come into play – if fewer people attend games and catering sales within venues start to decline, then those in charge might seriously look at their pricing models.



AB: I don't agree that the AFL is trying to ban the bump. What it is trying to do is make the consequences of an ill-timed or misdirected bump all the more severe. A bump needs to be precise in order to be legal and the duty of care is with the player who chooses to bump. First and foremost, the game needs to be safe to play. Certainly if the League was to take public opinion into account there will be no killing off of the bump. I can't remember an MRP verdict and tribunal ruling that inspired such universal outrage as that of Jack Viney last week. The shame is that it took five days and so many hurdles for commonsense to be reached. You also question the collective intelligence of the players whose clumsy bumps will rightly see them pay their dues with the Match Review Panel.

WATCH: Charged - did the Match Review Panel get it right in round eight?





AB: The Power appear to be good things for the top four. 7-1 already, the only games remaining where they would start, at worst, as an even money chance are Hawthorn (Adelaide Oval), Sydney Swans (home and away), Collingwood (away), Gold Coast (away) and Fremantle (away). Split those games and they finish 18-4, which would mean top two and two home finals. Ken Hinkley's boys are settling themselves beautifully.



AB: True. Ross Lyon has settled on a routine before they travel. When they play interstate on a Saturday, it involves the main training session at Fremantle on a Thursday morning, followed by a recovery session, lunch and then off to the airport. The day before the game involves another recovery session, usually at the beach. On Friday, the Dockers walked to Adelaide Oval and had a good look at the ground and the facilities, but didn't train there. Lyon and the players have become sticklers for their routine and are not blaming their unfamiliarity with Adelaide Oval for their final quarter fadeout against Port.



AB: The Tigers have lost the dash and the verve that marked their march to the finals last year. Do we pin some of that on the coach? Perhaps. But that doesn't place him on thin ice. Hardwick has rebuilt the club's playing stocks and given he is contracted until the end of 2016 he will have at least next year to fix things. And if you look at their draw for the remainder of this year, there are lots of winnable games to come.

AB: I'm not allowed to bet on footy. But there are plenty of people who happily would if that's what you're offering.



AB: The depleted Giants don't provide us with much of a gauge as to whether the Eagles have turned the corner, although 30.8 is a far better return in front of goal than the 7.14, 12.17 and 7.12 of the last three weeks. The next three will tell us all about West Coast – Collingwood and Hawthorn away, with a home game against North Melbourne sandwiched in between. West Coast could turn the corner at 7-4, or just as easily be 4-7 and looking to next season.

WATCH: Josh Kennedy's perfect 11 against the Giants