IF THERE'S one big point to come out of the first week of the finals it is reinforcement that September is a whole new caper. And that the home and away campaign is largely irrelevant when we get down to the business end of the season.

It was an extraordinary weekend of footy in which the Hawks and the Blues got home on the back of overpowering second-half performances, the Dockers wore down the Cats, and the Power simply out-gutted and out-believed the Magpies.

I loved the uncertainty of it all. And how a little change was able to have a big influence on the outcome. Here are my unsung heroes:

It might seem odd for a four-time club champion to be an unsung hero, but this was a role in which we don't often see Kane Cornes. Instead of playing as a pure onball tagger, he took on a really important role playing on Harry O'Brien on the wing and did it magnificently.

While he's better known for his contribution without the ball than he is with the ball, Cornes' composure when it was required was really important. And as a senior player in a young side boasting a lot less finals experience than the Pies, he provided a really cool head when it mattered most. 

The midfield match-ups of Cornes on O'Brien and Dominic Cassisi on Scott Pendlebury were critical. It helped Port that Pendlebury was an anchor in the midfield and O'Brien didn't move onto the ball so the match-ups stayed constant and Ken Hinkley didn't have to worry about who was responsible for the key pair. But the players concerned still had to do the job.

Cornes (28 possessions) was outstanding for his ability to stop the outside run usually provided by O'Brien (18 possessions), and did plenty of damage himself. With Pendlebury tied down by Cassisi it was left to the younger Port players to put the finishing touches on the job. And they delivered. 

Playing just his 34th AFL game, Lee Spurr was exceptional in defence. He had a career-best 29 possessions, second only to Michael Barlow's 32 in the Fremantle side, and kicked a critical long goal to put the Dockers in front for the first time 20 minutes into the second quarter. But more importantly, he locked out his opponent. Or opponents. 

A mature-age recruit originally from Brisbane who took himself to Adelaide to keep the football dream alive after he was overlooked in the draft as a teenager, he looked right at home in the pressure cooker environment of finals football. Although it's not quite the same, no doubt the experience of three SANFL premierships with Central Districts stood him in good stead.

 

He showed great composure when Fremantle was seriously under the pump early in the first and third quarters, and remained consistent throughout no matter what the Cats threw at him and how often they changed the make-up of their forward line.

At various stages he found himself picking up Paul Chapman, Steven Motlop and Allen Christensen, and that this match-winning trio didn't figure in the contest except for an occasional spurt was a huge credit to Spurr and a big plus for coach Ross Lyon.

He'll fill the same sort of role in the preliminary final, regardless of whom Fremantle plays, and it will be a comfort for Lyon that one of the genuinely unheralded players in his side has such a hold on his position.

He didn't touch the ball all that much but what this guy does off the ball is just unbelievable. He runs from one side of the field to the other for an outlet kick when he's needed to take the pressure off the defence, and just keeps turning up. He had just 13 touches for the day, but I reckon he would have run at least 1km for each one. And probably more.

Any player who has Dan Hannebery attached to his hip is in for a big day. But so hard did Smith run that, even when the Swans got the ball, Hannebery wasn't his usual damaging self because often he was in recovery mode, having chased his direct opponent so hard for so long. 

The Swans certainly missed Hannebery's lane running and his ability to burst from one end of the ground to the other. He had little influence on the stats sheet, and the fact that Smith, too, finished with 13 touches is a clear win for the Hawks, who would have gone into the game very conscious of Hannebery's power running.

An in-and-out player at Carlton this year, Bell was a consistent contributor all day in just his 15th senior game and first final. 

Originally from my junior club at Morningside in Brisbane, he was just about the Blues' best player at half-time, when they were 26 points down and should have been dead and buried.

A mountain of a young man making full use of his huge motor to get up and down the ground, he was running when most of his Carlton teammates weren't running in the first half. For a player who didn't know he was even playing until final selection on Saturday his was a really telling effort, helping to lay a platform on which a lot of more senior teammates cashed in after half-time.

Sure, he let himself down when he had a couple of chances to finish off his work, and a big turnover just before half-time which set up a Trent Cotchin goal could have been critical. But without him across the half-forward line and in the middle Carlton would have been in trouble. And when he starts to use the footy a little better he's going to be a player. A similar role awaits this week, when at least he should be confident of getting a game.