So the AFL season has taken another turn, and a delicious one at that.

Essendon's defeat of St Kilda on Sunday night will hopefully get the Bombers into the finals, because when they play the sort of frantic end-to-end footy that they displayed in the second and third terms on Sunday night, the Dons are a brilliant team to watch.

Essendon has done enough this year to deserve a finals place. While we're not huge fans of half the teams in the competition making the finals, eight teams means there is enough room for a couple of teams on the rise and this year in particular, rewards a team that play an exciting brand of football.

Will it stand up in the finals? Not sure about that, but the Dons have earned the right to have a crack at September and they are certainly more worthy finalists than Port Adelaide, Sydney and Hawthorn who mathematically at least, can still scrape in. If Essendon makes the finals then we can at least say we have eight worthy finalists.

The Blues are in, with their over Port Adelaide ensuring a finals berth for the first time since 2001. Depending on how results pan out, the Blues and the Bombers might be paired in a cut-throat elimination final.

The Saints? The "glass half-full" school will talk up the benefits of the Saints finally dropping one and that with the perfect season no longer possible, the push for the premiership becomes St Kilda's sole focus.

The nay-sayers will grasp on to anything. They'll say the Saints are vulnerable against a team with genuine pace (forgetting about the job the Saints did on the pacy Bulldogs a few weeks back) and Nick Riewoldt's kicking.

The messageboards and Facebook nearly went into meltdown after Riewoldt's kick started to the right and stayed that way. But his approach to the kick was one of a man who just wanted to get the kick out of the way and get off the ground.

You'd think that in September, with the stakes being what they are, Riewoldt will take that extra bit of time and care. And being the champ he is, kicking truly.