Coaches from both sides of Friday's thriller could only praise the game's standout performers, with Collingwood's Craig McRae noting fans had their "money well spent" watching Bulldogs captain Marcus Bontempelli and Magpies sensation Nick Daicos go head-to-head.
Daicos had the early advantage as the Magpies booted the opening three goals of the game, with the 21-year-old's first six touches all being clearances as he and brother Josh quickly put the reigning premiers ahead.
The third-year midfielder ended the night with a club-record 16 clearances to go with 32 disposals, 27 contested possessions and two goals in what was his best performance of the year, and arguably his short career.
At three-quarter time it looked as Daicos was 30 minutes away from leading the Magpies to another close victory while taking out the best-afield honours, only for Bontempelli to put up one of the more miraculous finals terms in recent time.
The Dogs skipper played every minute of the last quarter - which they won 31 to 1 - to steer his side over the line alongside the heroics of fellow midfielder Adam Treloar.
The five-time best and fairest winner recorded 14 possessions, five clearances, four tackles, one goal and an assist in the match-winning stanza to likely steal the three Brownlow votes from Daicos.
The duo often went head-to-head across the ground before Treloar was called on to quell Daicos in the final term, with McRae in awe of the battle between two of the game's greats.
"I've said this before; 'Bont' would look good in a Collingwood jumper," McRae joked.
"He's a quality player, isn't he? He's an elite player, I enjoy watching him when I watch footy.
"I come to a game to watch a player of his ilk. He can do a lot of things.
"And then Nick... Nick is playing exceptionally well for us. There's a lot of things that Nick does that others don't see. His pressure has been elite for us and his clearance work has gone to another level.
"You got your money well spent tonight if you came to watch those two."
Beveridge held similar sentiments after the 18-point win while also giving Treloar his flowers following his 37 disposals and 11 clearances against his former club.
The premiership coach praised the "match-winning" traits of the three leading midfielders before touching on the "enormous" efforts of Bontempelli in the final term.
"You talk about match-winning midfielders, and there's two who are the very best in the competition," the Dogs coach started.ย "I would throw Adam Treloar in that (conversation) as well.
"We didn't contain Nick early in the game, and we were trying to. Then we went with a different approach during the third quarter and it was OK.
"Then we asked Adam to go to Nick at the stoppages in the last quarter, and Adam's last quarter was enormous.
"We don't normally do it, but we kept Marcus on for the whole last quarter. We just felt like we needed him to (be out there). And just when he was due to come off we did keep him on, and he went forward and kicked that goal which was an important one for us.
"He was pretty fatigued, but on a night like tonight we needed everyone to stand up. As the skipper he was enormous."
The win for the Bulldogs sees them move into 10th on the ladder after 12 games to be one win away from Collingwood, who sit in the eight for the time being.
Fremantle and Gold Coast could lower both sides on the ladder with wins over Melbourne and Essendon respectively on Sunday.
