So the top eight is settled - one round earlier than expected - but just how many of the eight finalists for 2008 are genuine contenders to win the AFL premiership?
The answer it seems is not many.
In fact how many different ways over the course of the season can one write that the premiership is a one-horse race?
Another round and another convincing Geelong victory against a fellow finals contender - this time a North Melbourne side that went into Sunday's clash on the back of a six-game winning streak.
Not even eight goals from much-improved key forward David Hale in a career-best performance could see the Kangaroos get anywhere near a Geelong side that has now won an incredible 39 of its past 41 matches.
And in winning 20 of its first 21 matches this season, it has equalled the record of the great Essendon side in 2000 - which went on to beat Melbourne by 10 goals in the grand final in winning the flag after losing just one game all season.
Even retiring St Kilda veteran Robert Harvey, speaking after the Saints had qualified for the finals on Sunday by beating Adelaide to keep his dream of premiership glory alive, admitted on Sunday night that the Cats were 'head and shoulders above anyone else'.
But Harvey felt there was little between the other seven sides with positions four to eight up for grabs in next week's final round - with Geelong, Hawthorn and the Bulldogs guaranteed of finishing in the top three spots.
Fourth place is the only other spot that ensures the double chance and despite Sunday's loss, fourth spot remains the Kangaroos for the taking given that Dean Laidley's team only has to beat 13th-placed Port Adelaide at the MCG next Saturday to sew up fourth spot.
That leaves Collingwood, St Kilda, Sydney and Adelaide as the teams likely to be involved in the cut-throat elimination finals with Richmond, Brisbane and Carlton now officially out of contention.
And incredibly - just two years after no Victorian team reached the preliminary final - the remaining six sides by the end of the first week of the finals could all be Melbourne-based clubs with Sydney and Adelaide in particular looking to be making up the numbers in the finals this year.
The Crows were simply dreadful against St Kilda on Sunday - kicking just six goals and only three after quarter-time - and the return of Jason Porplyzia cannot come quickly enough with Adelaide's attack having about as much potency as that of Bangladesh in Test cricket in the absence of Porplyzia and knee victim Brett Burton.
And even Swans' coach Paul Roos admitted his team was all but a spent force after the 45-point loss to Collingwood at Telstra Dome on Saturday night - the Swans' sixth loss in eight matches and their sixth in a row at the hands of the Magpies.
Indeed the Swans' decline - while nowhere near as dramatic - is beginning to resemble that of West Coast, its great rival across 2005 and 2006 when the clubs staged the two most exciting grand finals of the modern era.
While the Eagles will miss the finals this season for the first time since 2001, the Swans have made the finals for the sixth year in succession - the first time the club has achieved