GWS, St Kilda, Western Bulldogs and Adelaide all rode an emotional roller coaster as the season concluded. Picture: ESPN

There’s something about the long and winding road towards a sporting competition’s conclusion which by its very nature always makes that denouement particularly satisfying. And so we got yet another ripping finish to an AFL home and away season.

It was even longer this year thanks to the “Gather Round”, 207 games required to sort out just which eight teams will have a chance to playoff for a premiership next month.

And while this time we didn’t get the drama all centred on the one location, like it was last year at the MCG when Collingwood famously tipped Carlton out of the top eight literally in the final seconds of the season, there was as many if not more storylines unfolding all over the place in 2023.

The uncertainty continued right to the final seconds again, even with the 207th and final home and away game comfortably within the Giants’ grasp against Carlton.

Toby Greene’s final goal for the Giants didn’t just ensure GWS would be playing finals for a sixth time in the past eight seasons. It temporarily even gave them elimination final hosting rights against St Kilda until Carlton answered with the last two goals.

Few Saints fans, given their club’s historical antipathy towards Carlton, will have felt particularly good about willing the Blues on to keep the margin of their defeat under 44 points, giving St Kilda the tiniest of percentage advantages over GWS.

But you do what you must. And a Melbourne final rather than one in Sydney could well prove pivotal to St Kilda lasting beyond the elimination final.

From a GWS perspective though, Greene, it should be noted, hardly seemed fazed immediately after the game by the prospect of having to play in Melbourne. Fair enough, too, given the Giants have played at no fewer than 12 different venues this season and managed to win at 10 of them.

Melbourne had earlier denied the Giants’ bitter local foe Sydney a home final with an ominous-looking comeback win over the Swans at the SCG. But at least the Swans are playing finals of some sort regardless of where, unlike the Western Bulldogs, who have again failed to do their talent justice.

The Bulldogs were nominally playing finals for about 23 hours between Saturday and Sunday evenings. But Carlton, with little to play for in real terms, couldn’t do the Dogs the necessary favour and upend the Giants. So for the first time in five years, Luke Beveridge and his team have a free September.

That scarcely believable loss to the allegedly hapless West Coast a week or so ago will sting even more now. The Bulldogs had proven credentials (a flag and two grand finals) in finals campaigns from the bottom half of the eight. This time, thanks to their own profligacy, they don’t get that chance.

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Adelaide? Well, the Crows too will be feeling even worse now than last week, Sydney’s loss to Melbourne confirming that had THAT behind been correctly called a goal the weekend before last, they’d now be preparing for their first finals series in six years.

Consider, also, how dramatically the fortunes of three 2023 finalists in particular have changed during the course of this season.

Carlton, famously, had lost eight of its previous nine games and was 15th on the ladder at the end of Round 13. GWS itself had occupied 15th the week before after just four wins from the first 12 games.

Sydney, meanwhile, seemed certain to fulfill the newly-popular cliché of the thrashed grand finalist for whom the bottom falls out of performance the following season, the Swans a dismal 15th as well as late as Round 17 with just six wins and a draw.

Remarkable revivals all. We know AFL football these days is a highly unpredictable affair. But it’s rarely been as unpredictable as in 2023.

And none of this even touches on the evenness of the top four, ladder leader Collingwood having come back to the field a little as it grapples with injuries to keys like Nick Daicos and Darcy Moore, whilst Brisbane, Melbourne and Port Adelaide all head into September with a full head of steam, the Lions especially a different proposition altogether now with the opportunity of two Gabba finals en route to just one visit to the MCG on grand final day.

It’s a tantalizing September awaiting. After a suitably dramatic road to get there. And all that drama over the past couple of weekends may also hopefully put paid to a couple of perennially tiresome media-inspired debates.

One is about tanking, which first West Coast in Round 23 then North Melbourne in Hobart on Saturday did their best to debunk with unexpected narrative-defying victories. The other is that yawnfest emerging late in every season about possible “wildcard finals”.

This season has been full of de facto finals. And we’re all smart enough to cope with those increasingly few games which have nothing of consequence riding on them.

The sort of contrived excitement of wildcards and likely No.1 draft picks simply doesn’t stack up alongside the genuine buzz of a six-month season. It’s a marathon which requires some actual attention and emotional investment. But that’s time well spent when we are witness to the sort of climax season 2023 is giving us.

This article first appeared at ESPN.