Eighteen teams sliced down the middle like an avocado. In one basket are the victors, in the other basket, the losers. The guillotine has fallen. Welcome to the football season.

Now the blade is slowly wound up to the top, only to fall again this weekend. As tempting as it is to make definitive calls after one game, it’s far too early to say, but things are happening. By the end of the season those neat avocado halves will be sliced repeatedly. A mix of wins, losses, cheers and jeers will blend colour, spice and citrus into the mix, until we have guacamole.

Even the best-performed teams will endure a few bumps along the trail this season. No one gets through unscathed.

Watching games of football live this year is a relatively new endeavour for me, at least in terms of my seat. As a player for the past 18 years, I probably watched two or three live a year. But it’s not just the vantage point, it’s watching games without the hyper-focus of my own team's situation. The last time I went to watch football like this was back in the 1990s when I was a kid. It feels good to be in the outer again.