• Nine things we learned from round five

FIVE WEEKS into the season and it is already becoming clear that two words that stand between West Coast and premiership success in 2016.

Those words are 'boarding' and 'pass'.

On the evidence before us so far this year, the Eagles are once again mightily good on their beloved home deck at Domain Stadium, but once they rock up to Perth airport and have a boarding pass thrust into their hands, they become a different team entirely.

They didn't come to play against Hawthorn in round two, but their dismal final 40 minutes or so against the Sydney Swans at the SCG on Saturday will be alarming to Adam Simpson as he completes his match review.

West Coast handled the greasy conditions reasonably well, at least in the middle of the ground, but the forward line was a mess. In the final term the Eagles had 19 inside 50s, which gave them a chance to stay in the contest, but could manage just four behinds.

The Eagles have now lost four of their past five games outside Perth (against Hawthorn twice, the Swans and Adelaide) and the other was a draw against Gold Coast. They need to regain their bearings on the road. Their next three road trips are to Geelong in a fortnight, to Adelaide Oval to play Port Adelaide two weeks later, and Etihad Stadium to meet the Western Bulldogs another two weeks after that. They get two more MCG clashes for the year (Carlton and Collingwood), but if they visit the SCG again this year it could be for an away final and that will be a worry.

Not that anything should distract from what was another comprehensive performance from the Swans. Five weeks in and it is time to applaud the club for a mini-rebuild during which time it has remained as competitive as ever.

In the past season and a bit, the Swans have injected Isaac Heeney, Callum Mills, Tom Papley, George Hewett and Daniel Robinson into the side. Heeney and Mills are the well-hyped graduates of the Swans academy, but Papley, the lively small forward, has come off the rookie list to provide just the spark the Swans needed.

He's not necessarily a direct replacement for Lewis Jetta, but based on the evidence on display on Saturday afternoon, the Swans would be most comfortable with having traded Jetta away to West Coast at the end of last season and having received Callum Sinclair in return. That's a win for them with for them with a capital 'W'.

May is a big month for the Magpies

We were bound to get a stinker involving Essendon at some stage of the year.

The shame was that it took place on Anzac Day, the day Kevin Sheedy shook out of its lethargy and transformed into one of the best events on the AFL calendar.

A reasonably competitive opening month of the season by the Bombers created this sense of hope that they could keep things close against a hopelessly out-of-touch Collingwood. But once the Pies had four goals on the board in the first 15 minutes with their midfielders running rampant, most of the suspense was out of the contest.

There will be times when it all clicks for the Bombers and their opponents, like Melbourne in round two, have a dirty day. But there will also be days like Monday when the competition will just have to avert its eyes and look away for 120 minutes.

It was a good day for Collingwood, in that a few midfielders found some form and Mason Cox and Josh Smith made pleasing debuts. Cox did enough to keep Travis Cloke out of the side for at least another week.

• Axed Magpie Cloke's tough day in the twos

The Pies only get one hit at the Bombers this year and took full advantage, boosting their percentage in one afternoon from 67.5 to 85.6.

But we're a month from knowing whether their stated aim of playing finals footy in 2016 is on the money. The Eagles in Perth next week will be tough, while the games that follow against Carlton and the Brisbane Lions are winnable. The two after that – Geelong and the Western Bulldogs – will be the telltale encounters. Lose both of those and we'll likely be having the same conversations about Collingwood that enlivened last week. 

Roos, Dogs set for Friday night fireworks

North Melbourne has had a problematic relationship with the state of Queensland for a while now, ever since moves were afoot to shunt the club to the Gold Coast nearly a decade ago.

The Kangas have endured some miserable defeats at both the Gabba and Metricon in the last few years and North fans would have swallowed hard when the fixture revealed two trips to Queensland in the opening five weeks of the season.

But they have successfully negotiated both Queensland trips for the first time in the same season, beating the Brisbane Lions by 34 points in round two and then Gold Coast by 38 points on Saturday night.

They were challenged several times by the Coasters, but they found another gear every time, the sign of a team full of confidence and full of contributors.

North sits 5-0, a game clear on top of the ladder, but cannot shy away from the limelight any longer and the Friday clash with the second-placed Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium should be outstanding.

While the Kangas retain Ben Cunnington courtesy of the Match Review Panel, the Dogs will be without yet another mobile half-back with Matt Suckling tweaking his knee. You wonder how many more running defenders the Bulldogs can afford to lose, but then again, Brisbane Lions coach Justin Leppitsch witnessed them first hand on Saturday night and raved about what he saw.

Friday night, with the roof closed should be loads of fun. And it shapes as the biggest clash between the clubs since they played for top spot in the final round in 1998, also on a Friday night. To save you leafing through the record books, the Kangaroos won by five points.

Forget the Lyon-speak, this is a rebuild

This column remembers a time when Carlton types would barely bat an eyelid at beating a winless team, even at the old Subiaco Oval.

But instead, our social media feed on Sunday night was full of exultant Carlton supporters following the four-point win over Fremantle at Domain Stadium.

The Blues have embarked on their well-articulated journey and this was a landmark event, showing considerable grit in the final term to eke out the win.

The silk came in the form of Patrick Cripps but the unlikely hero was Liam Jones, the oft-maligned key forward who hasn't delivered a great deal for the Blues, but who kicked the go-ahead goal in a last quarter that was at the same time both excruciating and compelling. Normally we urge key forwards to back themselves in when kicking for goal from 30 out, but we demur when it comes to Levi Casboult, who should handball to those in better position – in this case Dylan Buckley – at every opportunity.

Any maiden win is one to be savoured, even more so when it came on the other side of the country, so Carlton fans deserve to lap this one up. And with Essendon to come on Sunday, there might be more to come, and soon.

As for Freo, when you think things couldn't get any worse than a 0-5 start to the season and a long-term injury to Aaron Sandilands, down went Brownlow medallist Nat Fyfe as well.

Ross Lyon really has no choice but to start the rebuild even if, perhaps due to the time he spent at Carlton as an assistant coach when John Elliott was president, he won't term it as such.

"We don't rebuild but we re-stump, we re-wire, we re-plumb," he said. Big Jack might approve of the terminology but in anyone else's language, it is a rebuild.

• De Boer stars in WAFL. Who staked their claim for your club in this weekend's second tier?

Other observations

1. It is hard to think of a more humiliating defeat than that suffered by Port Adelaide on Saturday night. Four goals up and with the home crowd in a frenzy after the quarter-time melee, the Power kicked just three goals for the rest of the game while the Cats kicked 15. It was a pitiful performance all round from the Power, who simply turned up their toes when things got willing. With the president firing darts from the outside and the players feeling perhaps that wee bit precious, Alberton cannot be a happy place this week.

2. If Paul Roos has a sense of occasion, and we think he does, this will be the week he finally unveils Christian Petracca at AFL level. The setting could not be better – against St Kilda, the team that agonised over the no.1 selection at the 2014 NAB AFL Draft before choosing Paddy McCartin instead. McCartin is coming along very nicely for the Saints but the likelihood is that he and Petracca will be compared from this time going forward, just like Chris Judd and Luke Hodge a decade ago, even if comparisons between a midfielder and key position player can be manifestly unfair. As if there isn't enough excitement about the Demons, what with their first back-to-back wins for five seasons, they have Petracca's likely debut to look forward to this weekend as well. And while we're talking about the Dees, here's a shout-out to Tomas Bugg for the triumphant arm wave while he ran into goal on Sunday night. His mob is on the rise, the other mob (Richmond) is not, so why not mark the occasion? More power to him.

3. It is doubtful that too many No.28 jumpers have walked out the door of the HawksNest store out at Waverley Park, but that might change this week. Paul Puopolo has been one of the less-storied foot-soldiers of the Hawk three-peat, happy for the limelight to be left to others. Friday night at the MCG was supposed to be the showcase for premier small forwards Cyril Rioli and Eddie Betts and while both had their moments, they were upstaged by Puopolo who had 23 touches (17 of them contested), took a mark of the week contender and kicked five goals, including the match-winner with 18 seconds to go. Puopolo has yet to receive a Brownlow vote in 117 games for the Hawks, but you think Gillon McLachlan may have to practice his pronunciation come Brownlow night.

4. Memo, Alastair Clarkson: If you're looking to turn the tables on Greater Western Sydney on Saturday evening, you might want to start with these two unheralded Giants – Zac Williams and Nathan Wilson. Along with the better-known Heath Shaw, they carved up St Kilda at Etihad on Sunday, with 20 rebound 50s. Twelve of the Giants' 19 goals came from scoring chains that started in the back half. There was so much to like about the Giants on Sunday, but it started with their slick ball movement out of defence. The clash with the Hawks is the first home game in Sydney for the Giants this year, and one they should fully expect to win.