THE AFL clubs are in the midst of making their fixture requests for 2016, so we at After The Siren are making one of our own. 

Prime-time Western Bulldogs.

At their best, the Bulldogs play a high-octane, exhilarating brand of football and it was on display at Etihad Stadium on Saturday afternoon against Port Adelaide. After no Friday night games this year, they deserve to be a regular feature in 2016.

At a time when the game is under fire for its stodginess, the Bulldogs are the antidote to that. They conceded the first three goals against Power before reeling off the next nine.

There were momentary concerns given the defence was missing two regulars – Rob Murphy and Jason Johannisen – but the Dogs won control of the clearances and then they were away. 

Mitch Wallis was best afield and with 21.2 points, enjoyed his best game yet according to the AFL Player Ratings. 

Mitch Wallis's afternoon against Port Adelaide on Saturday. Source: AFL Live Official App

The Bulldogs ended up kicking 19.14 (128) and the 64-point win gave them a healthy percentage boost. But what was great about the scoreline was the method, with the mercurial Jake Stringer and Jack Redpath each kicking four goals and Tory Dickson chiming in with another three. 

Beveridge was an assistant coach at Hawthorn for three years before moving to the Whitten Oval and was part of the process at that club in which the scoring burden was moved away from Lance Franklin and instead shared around by five or six forwards – tall, medium and small. 

He has built the same flexibility and unpredictability into the Bulldogs. It was Stringer who provided the spark early in the second term when the Bulldogs needed to make their move, while Redpath kicked four goals in the final term, which Beveridge noted was a fine reward for an afternoon spent bullocking and playing a decoy for the other forwards. 

A huge roar erupted around Etihad Stadium after the final siren when the ladder showed that the Bulldogs had climbed into fourth place on the ladder. They were there on a temporary basis until the Geelong-Sydney Swans clash but they are now there on merit for at least a week and probably longer after the Swans went down to the Cats. 

Beveridge is refusing to talk finals until it becomes a mathematical impossibility for the Dogs not to make it. The AFL is already convinced, scheduling the Gabba clash with the Brisbane Lions for the Saturday afternoon of round 23 so the Dogs can be back home that evening to prepare for the finals.

That's the first sign that the League is now taking the Dogs seriously. The next step will be for more of them, and less of Carlton when the Friday night schedule is released for 2016.

Port bullied by the Bullies

Ken Hinkley's honesty has been a refreshing addition to the AFL landscape in his almost three seasons in charge of Port Adelaide and he made for great listening late Saturday afternoon after the loss to the Bulldogs. 

Port cannot make the finals now, a stunning outcome for a team widely touted as the premiership favourite. The Power started brightly with the first three goals and that was it.

Not one player earned a pass-mark for the day in what Hinkley called the most disappointing game in his time at the club and not too many have enhanced their reputations over the course of the season. 

The final possessions tally told the story: Western Bulldogs 425, Port Adelaide 296. Port could not get hands on the ball and after a time, could not handle the going. And it reminded Hinkley of what Port used to do to other clubs.

He said the Bulldogs reminded him of his own upstart team of 2013 and 2014, saying: "They're a team who are excited by how they're going, and they know what's probably on the horizon a little bit."

It is hard to pinpoint where it has all fallen apart for Port. There have been injuries, but not crippling. They have still enjoyed excellent seasons from Robbie Gray and Chad Wingard, while Travis Boak's output remains strong. But the defence hasn't stood up and the goals just haven't come from the Justin Westhoff-Jay Schultz combination.

Schultz is giving the best impression of someone who wants to be playing elsewhere next season and the assurances from Liam Pickering, the man who moved Gary Ablett, Lance Franklin and Tom Boyd to new clubs in recent years, that Schultz will remain at Alberton are not entirely convincing. 

Patrick Ryder hasn't so far been even been half the player the Power would have hoped for when lured across from Essendon.

Hinkley said Port might have fallen into the all-too-common trap for young teams in falling for all the hype. It was an interesting call, but some of the hype came from the club itself, particularly the perennial "we're the fittest team in the comp" talk. 

It is arguable that Port played one quarter all year that even closely resembled the form of last year – the opening quarter blitz against Hawthorn back in round four. 

Hinkley will have plenty of ammunition to throw at his team for the remaining four weeks of the season and when they resume once again in November. He will also be hoping that 2015 is the bump on the road the same as the Cats of 2006 – of which he was an assistant coach – experienced on the eve of their great era. 

Given the top-end talent at his disposal, who would rule such a thing out?

Cats warming up 

Geelong delivered the goods for one milestone game, Joel Selwood's 200th game. Will we witness another at the MCG on Saturday night when Steve Johnson returns from suspension to play his 250th game, against Hawthorn and with the re-born Catters' eyes on the finals? 

It might be the last time against the old enemy for a few of these old Cats, who can't have enjoyed how the pendulum in this fabulous rivalry has turned back towards the Hawks. All roads will lead to the MCG next Saturday night. 

• Forecast this season's final standings with the AFL Ladder Predictor 

The Adam Goodes story, meanwhile, won't be put to bed any time soon but what was clear on Saturday night at Simonds Stadium was that he was back to being treated just like any other footballer.

There was a smattering of jeers, but the type that any visiting player might cop rather than anything more sustained. Football might just have taken a good, hard look at itself and emerge from this episode having learned a lesson or two.

More to the point for Goodes is that his team is just going, now out of the top four and is no good thing to get back there if the Bulldogs maintain their winning form. That's the context in which we should be discussing the Goodes and the Swans from here on in because their flag hopes are teetering.  

Some other observations…

1. It was a gutsy move by Hawk coach Alastair Clarkson to leave Brian Lake at home for the trip to play against West Coast. Eagles spearhead Josh Kennedy has been in great form and is precisely the sort of 'monster' forward Lake was brought to the club to curb. Kennedy kicked four on Saturday night and looked threatening, but Hawthorn's defence by committee – Josh Gibson, James Frawley, Ben Stratton and Ryan Schoenmakers – did just enough to help deliver their club's most critical win of the season.

2. West Coast twice blew three-goal leads against the Hawks, in conditions not that conducive to scoring. That won't sit well with Adam Simpson, but what will really concern the Eagles coach was the apparent reoccurrence late in the game of the hamstring injury to Jeremy McGovern. It always seemed a touch ambitious for the spring-heeled defender to come back from his first hamstring injury after just 21 days and the hope for West Coast is that it was as Simpson wished, nothing more than a "bad cramp". The Eagles are down to their bare bones defensively with a tough few weeks to come.

3. Good start and finish by North Melbourne on Sunday against Melbourne, but they were shown up a bit in the middle. You wonder what might have happened had Melbourne managed to hit the front in the third quarter. Still, that's five straight wins to the Kangas and another wonderful game from the silky Shaun Higgins, who has been a great pick-up from the Bulldogs. Lindsay Thomas kicked five goals and has become a microcosm of his side – when he's good, he's very good. When he's not … you know the rest of the story.

4. Lest we discuss betting on the NAB AFL Rising Star Award, but if there are two better candidates to win than Melbourne's Angus Brayshaw, then it has been a great year for emerging talent.

5. It took 18 weeks, but we got the complete Adelaide performance against Richmond on Friday night. When the Crows are as dominant in contested footy and clearances as they were, then Adelaide Oval becomes the fortress it was always supposed to be. The Crows will be in the finals race until the last Saturday of the home and away season, a credit to everyone at the club after such a tumultuous couple of months.

6. With the Q-Clash over, the Suns and Lions still have four weeks to play. Will anyone even notice?

7. Here's how long it was since Collingwood last won a game. Five players – Levi Greenwood, Jonathon Marsh, Brayden Maynard, Darcy Moore and Matthew Scharenberg - had yet to be doused in drink while they sang the song. That's why there is plenty of upside for Collingwood, despite what has been a difficult second half of the season.

QUESTION TIME

Ashley Browne: 
This reminds me of a joke I was read in one of the favourite books when I was a kid, Great Football (soccer) Jokes:
Person A: "From where I was sitting, he was clearly offside."
Person B: "And where you were sitting?"
Person A: "On my sofa, next to my cat."
Now I don't have a cat but I was sitting on my sofa and yes, the ball appeared to be just out of play. Did it come at a crucial stage of the game? Yes. Was it a deciding factor? Doubtful. The game was trending in Hawthorn's direction by then.

AB: We have had 11 teams still in finals contention this late into the season on several occasions in the last few years and as recently as this time last season, Richmond was still two games out of the eight and appearing only a mathematical chance to make the finals. What is great about this season is how many spots are wide open. Only Fremantle's fate for the first weekend of the finals looks set in stone, which is a home qualifying final. But from West Coast (second) through to Collingwood (11th) everything else is in play. We will likely be waiting until the final day of the season to know the make-up of the top two, top four and final eight and therefore the various finals permutations.

AB: More than likely a qualifying final, with the venue still to be considered. The Hawks have the easier run home from here and might win one more game than West Coast, meaning they'll jump back into second place which would leave the September re-match at the MCG.

AB: Scoring variety will be the issue going forward for the Swans. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Kurt Tippett's best position is in the ruck rather than as a dual key forward alongside Franklin. Which is fine except that it leaves Franklin to carry the scoring burden, which as the Hawks learned from his time there, makes for great highlight reels but doesn't necessarily deliver enough goals to win a premiership. There are some disturbing holes emerging in the Swans' list and they include a small crumbing forward to play at the feet of Franklin, and key defensive depth to cover for Ted Richards.