If you could pick a match as a template for how we want football to look for the foreseeable future, it would be hard to go past Saturday night's Adelaide-Sydney clash.

The Crows' thrilling 10-point win had everything you want in a game. It wasn't just close, but tough and skilful at the same time, players having to use the sharpest of hands to get the ball free from pressure, and precise foot skills in the heat telling.

Significantly, it was also a game which opened up the longer it went. At half-time, with the scores five goals each, much of the commentary was about how you didn't need high scores for a great game.

But the Crows kicked 11 goals in the second half, the Swans 10, to give us another game this year in which both teams have passed 100 points. That was the fifth time so far in fewer than four completed rounds. Last year, it happened just twice in the first 11.

Yet, the story of higher scores in 2016 isn't necessarily about finishes with plenty of goals. In fact, quite the reverse. By the end of Saturday night, after 33 games this season, in only six had the final quarter been the highest-scoring of a game.

It's been the second quarter in which teams have put the foot down in scoreboard terms, second terms this season producing the equal highest scores of any quarter going back to 2012.

The second quarter was the highest-scoring in 13 of those 33 games, the first and third terms in just seven each, and the final term just six times. It seems greater fatigue doesn't necessarily equate to barnstorming finishes to games, but perhaps more barnstorming starts while teams are fresh, Greater Western Sydney's first-half 14.10 against Port Adelaide on Sunday another good example.

West Coast on Friday night, meanwhile, continued to score after half-time against Richmond with the game effectively parcelled up, but didn't go about it with anything like the same sort of intensity.

We're learning as we go with the rule changes, not just the fans, but even the clubs themselves. The interchange cap of 90, the harsher rulings on deliberate out-of-bounds, and the 10-metre protected area, are all having a clear impact on games. It's how they impact over the longer term that teams are trying to get their heads around as quickly as possible.

Injury and list management is looming as another big factor. Things got messy for the Western Bulldogs on Saturday night, with Jason Johannisen joining Bob Murphy and Easton Wood in the injured Bulldog defenders club.

Two of those three injuries are hamstring strains. Rest assured the fitness men this week will be examining as best as possible whether greater fatigue in games might be making players more prone to soft-tissue injuries.

Already teams are beginning to "spell" the odd player. Geelong did it with Corey Enright on Saturday. Josh Gibson might well have got to the line for Hawthorn had it been a final. Instead, after a week off, he'll return for a big game indeed on Friday night against Adelaide.

It's not just the veterans, though. The Cats listed Lincoln McCarthy as an omission this week, but he didn't play in Friday night's VFL game. And young or old, experienced or still raw, pacing oneself, be it on an individual or team level, might be even more important in 2016 than it has previously.

To that end, Geelong will probably be more pleased simply with getting the result than a scrappy 30-point win over Essendon might indicate. Ditto Hawthorn, who could well be 1-3 rather than 3-1 right now. "For two weeks in a row the better side has probably lost," coach Alastair Clarkson conceded after Saturday's close shave over St Kilda.

But he also knows from last year that jumping out of the blocks in a season, whilst increasing popular expectations, doesn't necessarily mean you'll finish in the same manner.

The Hawks were only 4-4 after eight games last year, playing patchy football, at times brilliant, at times seemingly half-asleep. But finishing top four was enough, even allowing them to lose their first final. Arguably their best three performances of the season were their last three.

That's a pretty reasonable template from which to be approaching 2016. And one of which a lot of other teams might also have taken note.

But they're all, even the Hawks, learning on the run. Literally, as teams work harder for longer periods, and begin to count the cost in terms of casualties of that effort.

It's already clear that the reduced interchange cap, the greater dangers inherent in playing around the boundary and more space around the mark for players with the ball are changing the look of most games.

It's the cumulative impact of 22 of those higher-scoring, more open but also more draining contests that the better teams this season are likely to grasp more quickly, and adjust their battle plans accordingly.

And while I'm at it...

They'll be coming for Nathan Buckley now, one-year extension on his coaching contract or not. For now, however, it will be a purely hypothetical exercise.

Despite the tough talk of Collingwood president Eddie McGuire about sacking the coach "if it was the right thing to do", such action so soon after renewing his deal and with only four games gone would make the Magpies look ridiculous.

But Buckley's coaching credibility has been shaken badly by Collingwood's loss to St Kilda last week followed by Sunday's defeat at the hands of Melbourne.

And the extent of the responsibility he takes for the downturn depends on to what extent you believe that most fundamental indicator of effort is up to the coach or the players who actually have to give it out on the ground. At 1-3 the season isn't over yet for the Pies. But what can't be tolerated any longer is players who pick and choose their moment to apply themselves. Unfortunately, doing that on a consistent basis goes hand in hand with experience and maturity, and that's something Collingwood are still working on.

It's why the loss of Dane Swan has been a particularly savage blow. It's why skipper Scott Pendlebury was able to get Collingwood back on track once he shifted into the thick of the centre square action against Melbourne.

And the lack of experience and maturity goes some way to explaining the enormous gulf between some encouraging NAB Challenge performances, and what the Pies have served up since.

Plenty of us got sucked in by February and March, perhaps overlooking that even in good wins against Geelong and the Western Bulldogs, Collingwood had been jumped, and won off the back of one or two quarters' outstanding football. That's not enough to cut it between April and September.

It certainly wasn't on Sunday, when the Pies allowed Melbourne to rack up a seven-goal lead before they fired a shot. The effort-based stats for that opening term were damning indeed, Collingwood more than doubled for clearances and down by 12 already in contested ball.

That by the end of the game they'd crept ahead in the former category and broken even in the latter shows just how far off the pace they were early. You can argue that it is up to Buckley to have his players switched on, do you then ignore the improved effort over the next three quarters?

None of which is meant to be an escape clause for the high-profile coach. But it's too convenient to sheet all the blame home to Buckley.

Would the Pies be performing significantly better right now under someone else? I have my doubts. Clearly, they turned up for the first game against Sydney a bit too full on their own publicity, were humiliated, and have had trouble regaining their confidence ever since. Perhaps Buckley has too. Which is untimely. Because he's about to cop more heat in the lead-up to what is now a massive Anzac Day trial of sorts against Essendon, than he's ever known in his five-year coaching career.

THE LAST WORD

THE BUMP

Steven May might have been pretty unlucky to end up with a three-game suspension last year after a legitimate bump on Brisbane's Tom Rockliff made incidental contact with the Lions skipper's head. There can be no excuses for May against the Lions this time, though, in his huge hit on Stefan Martin. The defender not only ran past the ball but left the ground to make contact. It was everything we don't need to see in the game today. To a chastened May's credit, he very publicly apologised to the fortunately still conscious Martin out on the ground after the game. But his existing record will hurt him, and it's hard to see him escaping with anything less than a four-week "holiday".

THE DISTANCE

It was obvious even on Friday night that umpires had decided to clamp down on paying marks from kicks which hadn't travelled the full 15 metres. That came home to roost for St Kilda, perhaps unfairly, at a critical stage on Saturday against Hawthorn. I had no issue with Leigh Montagna's kick-in to Sean Dempster being called play-on. Dempster's chip to Shane Savage, though, seemed a harsh call indeed. There's a lot less time for umpires to judge distance in these situations than when applying a 50-metre penalty. People might scoff at extra ground markings. But maybe there's a simpler solution, if groundkeepers are instructed to cut the grass in 10-metre squares?

THE UNDERRATED

Brodie Smith is already an All-Australian. So is Daniel Talia. Rory Laird made last year's initial 40-man squad. But still few people seem to talk much about Adelaide's defence, the focus perhaps not surprisingly on a power-packed forward line. That has to change soon, because the Crows' backline unit is terrific, defending and rebounding in equal measures, even lesser lights than the above-mentioned trio in Jake Lever, Kyle Hartigan, Kyle Cheney and Luke Brown all pulling their weight besides. They have a great understanding, combine brilliantly, and have had every bit the influence on Adelaide's great start to the season as their more-heralded forwards and midfielders.

THE CLASSICS

I'll call it. The Adelaide-Sydney clash was the best so far this season, a tight first half opening up in the second, always close, tough but still with room for skill. It was a ripper. But it's far from an isolated example after just four rounds. I'd put it only marginally in front of last week's Western Bulldogs-Hawthorn epic, with other close contenders in Saturday's Hawthorn-St Kilda game, North Melbourne's narrow win over Adelaide in round one, and even by far the best "Q Clash" we've seen, Brisbane and Gold Coast going hammer and tongs all night on Saturday. Still early days, but 2016 really is shaping as the best football we've seen played for quite a while.