Josh Rachele celebrates during the round nine match between Port Adelaide and Adelaide at Adelaide Oval, May 10, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos

IF ROUND nine felt like an unusual case of one nail-biting game after another, you're not wrong.

Across nine matches over the weekend, just one had a victory margin of more than three goals, which was Hawthorn's 35-point win over Melbourne on Saturday afternoon, after the scores had been level early in the fourth quarter.

The average winning margin of 10.33 points is a record in the AFL era and it's been 55 years since we saw a round of footy like it.

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AFL statistician Swamp has revealed round nine, 2025 was the lowest average victory margin in the VFL/AFL since round 10, 1970, which featured just six games instead of nine.

After Collingwood (14 points over Fremantle) and Carlton (15 points over St Kilda) had joined Hawthorn in recording wins early in the round, the games tightened up significantly on Saturday evening.

Essendon, Gold Coast and Adelaide won by a combined margin of 23 points, including one of the best Showdowns ever.

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Sunday, in particular delivered a treat, with wins to Richmond by two points, Greater Western Sydney by four points and the first draw of the season between North Melbourne and Brisbane.

"It was the best round of footy so far and it just shows that if you're not on, any team can knock you off, as we saw with the late game (Kangaroos v Lions)," Port Adelaide champion Kane Cornes said on First Up on Sunday night.

"It makes for a fascinating season and a pretty interesting round ahead."