North played the style of game that excites fans and ball-playing midfielders alike.

North’s list management will look at that game from LDU and say, “We just can’t lose this guy.” He and George Wardlaw were tremendous in the first half when they dominated the midfield, and Nick Larkey was irrepressible up forward. The two mids faded in the second half – at 20 years old, Wardlaw’s tank is still only half full, but you can see how good he will be when he’s fit enough to play a full game the way he wants to.

As a contest, the match was everything you want from AFL football: 37 goals kicked for the day, and a final margin of one point; only decided in the last three seconds. An underdog came in with a plan not to flood and ugly the game up, but to play with freedom and adventure.

There were surging ruins from the middle, and goals kicked from all angles when North just could not miss a set shot.

Then an old bald head like Steele Sidebottom moved on to the ball and played his best quarter for the year to help turn the game away from the vibrant young opposition. And then there was Jeremy Howe being flung forward and looking like it was a move that should have happened earlier.

It had contests within contests, with the ruck duel between Tristan Xerri and Darcy Cameron an engrossing sub-plot.

Larkey kicked four goals in a quarter largely on the Collingwood captain, while Lachie Schultz kicked four goals, his best return for his new club.

Bobby Hill won last year’s Norm Smith Medal playing much as he did on Sunday. He booted five goals, took two brilliant grabs – one that will contend for mark of the year with Jamie Elliott’s – and he franked both of those marks with goals, one of them ultimately the match-winner.

The AFL has finished its competitive balance review. It is a review predicated on the idea of making changes to keep the competition so even that on any given Sunday, any team could win. On this Sunday, the most unlikely team could have, and almost did, win.

These Hawks are worthy of finals talk

Beating the second-bottom team doesn’t give you credentials as a finals team. Beating this year’s second-bottom team when you were the third-bottom team last year and now find yourself with six wins from your past seven games gives you some credentials.

When that team is Richmond and they are playing for Dustin Martin in his 300th game, and it is a moment of such emotional consequence for that club that it draws a crowd bigger than any that your two teams had played in front of before in a regular-season game, and was in the top-10 home-and-away crowds of all time for any teams? Well, yes, that further burnishes your credentials.

When Richmond were able to bring back Tom Lynch, one of the best key forwards in the competition, for his first game in three months – and finally field one of their strongest teams for the year – that gives you further claim in an argument for a finals spot.

Hawthorn probably won’t make the finals, but given where they have come from, the very fact this is not a laughable proposition at the halfway mark of the season is a comment on the distance they have come. Winning four games in a row for the first time since 2018 is another measure of that.

At the halfway mark little separates fourth and 13th and Hawthorn has proven they are not unworthy. Yes, all their wins but one – GWS last week – have been over sides that were outside the top eight when they played them, but the gap is closing on that eight.

They are relatively healthy. Although their injury list is long, it is primarily Chad Wingard and Mitch Lewis who are missing from their clear-best 23. With the way Calsher Dear has taken to the game, and Mabior Chol continues to have an influence, the absence of Lewis has not been as acutely felt as it has been in recent seasons.

The Hawks’ 50 per cent win-loss record – seven wins from 14 games – ahead of their bye is the definition of middle-of-the-road, but enough to have them in the conversation for eighth. Their weak percentage, which is an uncorrected relic of their bad early-season losses, reflects that they are still a step below the other finals contenders.

Since they got on their winning roll seven rounds ago, the Hawks are the most damaging team from scoring from kick-ins in the league. Over the same period, they have been the best team at winning ground balls, contested or uncontested, which reflects their high work rate to get numbers to where the contest is.

Will Day is not only their best midfielder and edging up on James Sicily as their best player, he is also the most rounded of their midfielders.

His run-down tackle of Hugo Ralphsmith when the Richmond player was running inside 50 in the third quarter and the Tigers were still conceivably a chance of getting into the game was momentum shifting.

Hawthorn’s game is exciting for the risk they take in moving the ball.

They can afford that when Sicily can weight kicks out of the backline as he does, and they have the adventurous run of Karl Amon and Jarman Impey, but the Hawks’ game has defensive stability to it now. Since round six, when they started winning, they are ranked third for points conceded, with 77. They have kept their opponents to 80 or fewer points in all but one win.

They looked threatening going forward.

They will look more threatening when Nick Watson remembers how to kick goals like he did as a junior. It’s an odd thing, Watson’s goal kicking, because of all the things you would think of his game, you would not say he lacks for confidence.

Bont’s goal of the year

Marcus Bontempelli’s goal in the third quarter was not as flamboyant or inventive as the snaps from the boundary, but for level of difficulty it should be on any shortlist for goal of the year.

The ball was kicked long to him sandwiched between three players. One sagged off the back but, regardless, he remained wedged between Alex Pearce and Luke Ryan, and yet with strength he held them both out, controlled the ball, pushed away from them, turned, and snapped the goal.

For context, Ryan has been an All-Australian, was a nominee for that honour again last year, and has won a best and fairest award. Pearce is the Dockers’ captain and is one of the AFL’s best defenders.

Beating either one of these men one-out would be some achievement. He beat both.

Loading

It was a Brownlow vote-getting performance from a Brownlow-worthy player.

Welcome to the Amartey party

In the past 10 years there have been 12 occasions when players have kicked more than eight goals in a game. Remarkably, half of them happened last year.

Joel Amartey is now on that list after his nine goals for the Swans. The significance of this feat was not that he kicked nine, but the offensive threat at Sydney has always felt to be from their midfielders and their small-to-mediums, such as Tom Papley and Will Hayward. They have threats everywhere now, the Swans.

Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter.