Thank god for Collingwood!
The Magpies' upset victory over Adelaide at AAMI Stadium in the First Elimination Final on Saturday was the saving grace of the first week of the finals that otherwise were flat and predictable.
Even the Pies' win was achieved in front of a crowd of just 37,000 - as the trend for disappointing crowds in finals matches in South Australia in recent years continued - while in the two qualifying finals thousands of fans were streaming out before the final siren as Hawthorn and Geelong totally dominated the outclassed Bulldogs and St Kilda respectively.
But at least those games at the MCG were played in front of 70,000 plus crowds - unlike Saturday night's embarrassing second elimination final at ANZ Stadium where just 19,127 fans saw Sydney end North Melbourne's season.
It was believed to be the lowest AFL finals crowd since 1924 and surely adds to the argument that footy-mad Tasmania should join the AFL in 2012 as the competition's 18th team ahead of West Sydney.
But surely more exciting times this September lie ahead - after next week's semi-finals that is, which will only decide which two clubs have the opportunity to be thrashed by Geelong and Hawthorn in the two preliminary finals in a fortnight's time.
The emphatic wins by the Cats and the Hawks kept the competition's two best teams on opposite sides of the draw and they will go into their respective preliminary finals in a fortnight's time as the hottest of favourites.
So the stage already looks set for the first Cats-Hawks grand final since 1989 - when the two teams put on the best grand final of the modern era, a bruising affair that the Hawks won by six points to win back-to-back flags for the first time.
This time it is the Cats trying to create history - by winning back-to-back flags for the first time since 1952 - but just as the Cats in 1989 had a superstar full-forward who so nearly beat the Hawks on his own that day in Gary Ablett senior - whose nine goals remains a grand final record - so to do the Hawks in 2008 in the magnificent Lance 'Buddy' Franklin.
Franklin's eight goals against the Dogs on Friday night - which took his total to 110 for the season - electrified an otherwise disappointing game in which the Dogs were shown up as being too small to compete with the top two teams.
It was a major letdown for the thousands of Dogs fans who thought this was the club's best chance to at least reach a grand final for the first time since 1961 but while they will fancy their chances of bouncing back against Sydney in next week's knockout semi - forget about the Dogs getting anywhere near the Cats in the preliminary final.
The Saints, who fell into fourth place only when they humiliated a virtual Essendon reserves side in the last round, were also exposed as lacking class and depth by the magnificent Cats on Sunday.
Just as the Dogs lacked options in defence on Friday night - where Dale Morris and Brian Lake were brutally exposed by Franklin and Jarryd Roughead for height and class - so too was the Saints' one-dimensional forward line shown up by the league's best defence on Sunday.
St Kilda skipper Nick Riewoldt