AFL football has never been more volatile than right now, not only from year to year, but week to week, even quarter to quarter.
If you think that's hyperbole, consider that according to Champion Data, there's been 11 games this season in which sides have blown leads of five-goals-plus, with two rounds remaining it's already the most for 10 years.
We've spoken plenty about the various peaks and troughs all teams have been through. Even long-time ladder leader Sydney felt the sting, the Swans looking set to slide to a sixth loss in seven games last Friday night before pulling one out of the fire against Collingwood.
Indeed, Collingwood itself is in 2024 shaping as a pretty good example of just how quickly this increasing volatility is reshaping the status quo.
It's getting harder to hang on to what you've got, and last Friday night was another classic case. The Magpies have for nearly three seasons now made an artform of protecting a narrow lead, having won no fewer than 22 games decided by single figure margins since Craig McRae took over in 2022.
But is the pendulum swinging again? Against the Swans, Collingwood let slip a 27-point lead, just a week after surviving a kick after the siren from Carlton which might have cost them a game they'd led early in the final term by 32 points.
Anyway, the upshot is that the Magpies will almost certainly not be playing finals in 2024, and that continues a recent trend which surely also is noteworthy.
Collingwood will be the third reigning premier in four seasons not to even be part of September the following season, after Richmond missed out on finals in 2021, and Geelong had a rare spell from finals action last year after its 2022 flag.
In contrast, just one premiership team of 17 between 2000-16 (Hawthorn in 2009) failed to play finals the following season. That has to be significant. But in more far-reaching ways than merely a line in the history books. Like when it comes to list management.
Collingwood certainly faces some interesting decisions when it starts reviewing its 2024 campaign. And before it settles on its 2025 list, it will first need to determine just what a greater sense of volatility means in that context.
Does it mean that teams may struggle to stay "up" for as long any more? Probably. But that may also mean that they can rebound more quickly, too. And yes, even when, like Collingwood, we're talking about the oldest list in the competition.
Of course the bottom line this season is that the Pies have fallen well short in their flag defence, their efforts hardly helped by considerable misfortune on the injury front, the sort of fortune which largely fell their way last year.
That has to be weighed up against the extent to which a satisfied hunger was a factor in the drop-off of some key players, the demarcation line between those two factors not necessarily easily distinguished.
While Nick Daicos has maintained his superb standard, ruckman Darcy Cameron is by some measure Collingwood's most improved player this season. Any others are marginal at best and far outnumbered by those who have either lacked continuity or not performed as well.
Now, let's talk age. And perhaps on that score, the Pies could do a lot worse than (not for the first time) looking at Geelong for some cues.
The Cats of course were not just the oldest premiership team ever in 2022, but the oldest team full stop. If ever there was a case study for ends of eras, it had to be a side with that age profile climbing the premiership mountain then missing out on finals 12 months later with a group which still had 11 players older than 30 when the season began.
Yet Geelong didn't overreact. It bid farewell to three over-30s in Isaac Smith, Sam Menegola and Jonathon Ceglar, but still began this season with 11 players older than 30 and behind only Collingwood as the oldest playing group in the competition.
And here we are two rounds before finals with Geelong once again poised for a serious flag assault, still with more than its share of veterans, but also regenerated by the continuous improvement of younger faces like Max Holmes, Zach Guthrie, Ollie Dempsey, Jack Bowes and Shannon Neale.
Collingwood will finish this season with nine players in the over-30 bracket. It might have some difficult calls to make on the likes of Mason Cox (33), Tom Mitchell (31) and Brody Mihocek (31), too, all of whom have dealt with significant injury issues this year.
The upside, however, is that has forced the Pies to debut six new players compared with just two last year. And several of the newcomers have shown really good signs, mature age pair Joe Richards and Lachie Sullivan particularly.
Several of the oldies have got a wriggle on lately, too, most notably 400-club newcomer Scott Pendlebury and Steele Sidebottom. Who knows how big an impact their last few weeks might have had on McRae's thinking for next year?
The point is that this year has in several respects underlined just how quickly trends in football can change now. Not to mention the added benefits an extra almost five weeks' rest can have by missing finals, compared to competing on the final day of the season and having a 'smaller preseason' potentially impact a team's start to the following campaign -- Brisbane and Collingwood's 0-3 starts in 2024 an example.
And while only a couple of years ago the obvious presumption about a premiership team failing to reach finals the following year with the second-oldest playing group in the competition would be that the gig was up, I'm not entirely convinced the Pies haven't still got a few punches left to swing, even if they might have to wait until next March to do so again.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY.