IT WASN'T so much a "Super Saturday" as "Sabotage Saturday", an afternoon and evening when four teams with golden opportunities to come within touching distance of a top-four spot simultaneously shot themselves in the foot.

Collingwood's cave-in at the hands of Essendon should have been music to the ears of St Kilda as it prepared for its Subiaco clash with West Coast. Maybe instead it proved a siren's song because the Saints promptly dropped the ball against an opponent that would have had trouble beating itself this season, let alone anyone else.

That left the fourth-placed incumbent, Sydney, the chance to put yet more space between it and the rest. Instead, the Swans lost to Adelaide for a ninth time in their past 10 clashes. All of which opened the door for the Brisbane Lions, a door prised open before being slammed shut by Richmond's Joel Bowden with about 20 seconds to play.

The Lions could plead the luck of the gods had gone against them. Which would carry a bit more weight had they not been completely smashed 15-1 at the stoppages in a woeful second quarter that they were indeed lucky hadn't already cost them the game by half-time.

The race for fourth spot is starting to echo Steven Bradbury's famous Winter Olympics gold medal, a last-man-standing affair. With one important difference. Bradbury had no one left in front him at the finish line. Whoever grabs the prized spot in this contest will still have three other runners miles in the distance, all of whom, in contrast, know how to take their chances.

As Brisbane skipper Jonathan Brown told 3AW in a remarkably candid post-game interview: "No one really seems to want to win. If you sneak in, you're a chance, but we've got to worry about just staying in the eight."

Is anyone in the long queue forming for fourth good enough to take it up to the top three anyway? "Probably not at the moment," Brown shrugged. Probably not in five weeks, either.

The big winners out of Saturday's kamikaze efforts clearly were North Melbourne, which leapfrogged from 10th to fifth. And Adelaide, back in the eight, St Kilda tipped out entirely when only seven days ago we were talking qualifying finals for the Saints.

The Crows don't have nearly enough credits in the bank to be considered a serious contender, having just come off five straight losses, and with only two of their nine wins coming against top-eight teams. And the Kangaroos? North's credentials are arguably better than anyone else, having beaten Hawthorn, the Western Bulldogs and coming oh-so-close to the trifecta with a gallant 13-point loss to Geelong.

They're certainly better than those of Collingwood, whom they've beaten twice anyway, and whose continued knack of dropping games it should win is becoming increasingly tedious.

What the Roos don't have, significantly, is percentage, the only team in the top eight below 100, and a whopping 22 percentage points behind Sydney. That's as good as a couple more games, the legacy of the fourth-lowest aggregate score in the competition, and a couple of earlier pastings at the hands of Essendon and Fremantle, of all teams. The half-game break on the next four teams is precarious, and there's games to come against Brisbane, the Western Bulldogs and Geelong.

Not that the Swans' draw is a picnic. Nor Collingwood's. Adelaide has a tough finish, Brisbane's tougher still. St Kilda's isn't as challenging, and the Saints get Justin Koschitzke back, though they may at the same time lose important key defender Max Hudghton. But chances don't beckon as loudly as St Kilda had in Perth and the Saints blew it big time.

It's simply not good enough to say of the various top-four aspirants that on their day they can beat any or all of the top three. Finals campaigns are about, at best, three if not four days of football. And one monumental girding of the loins for a super effort against one of the top dogs means little if it can't be followed up with another couple.

And frankly, that task appears beyond any of those who so comprehensively stuffed themselves up one very costly Saturday as early as July.