Nothing much was learnt over the weekend from the NAB Cup.
Essendon flew to the other side of the country to get beaten with a young list, Greater Western Sydney were gallant in two defeats and the Western Bulldogs haven't advanced as much as people have been suggesting over the summer.
The one big innovation was Buddy to the midfield.
Lance Franklin on the ball is a little bit scary to ponder.
It's not the first time a big 198cm moving machine has gone into the midfield.
In the 1980s Richmond used Michael Roach on occasions and Matthew Richardson also spent time there later in his career, finishing third in the Brownlow in 2008.
People also argued years ago that Carl Ditterich played more as a ruck rover than a ruckman.
It was an interesting ploy and Franklin got caught a couple of times, perhaps he'd been watching his own ad on Fox Footy a little too much and though he had Cale Hooker chasing him.
But if he picks up his awareness and they use him in the midfield for half a game and up forward for the other half, it could be a hard tactic to coach against.
Everybody has got to come up with new tricks, the same old, same old can't work.
Collingwood will try and invent a new game plan and everybody will be using these pre-season games as designer matches for their team set ups.
No one should worry about the NAB Cup, the only really heartening thing to come out of the weekend was that GWS were competitive.
A lot of people have been saying the only thing they'll win this year on the field is the coin toss.
I do think they will be a long way down the ladder, a long way down, but they still might be competitive.
God only hopes they are, the AFL have spent a lot of money to get them this far and that's reflected in the losses that the AFL had in 2011.
God forbid even poor old Andrew Demetriou missed out on his bonus, he only got $1.8 million last year.
I hope the people of Toorak don't find out that he's only getting that, he'll end up on the B list!