Brent Harvey's third goal in the third quarter against the Bombers on Sunday is one such goal.
Forty-two seconds passed between the centre bounce and Boomer booting the ball through for his third goal in two minutes.
Those 42 seconds showed how teams exploit even the slightest lapses in concentration from their opponents.
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Soon after the clock started ticking, Essendon's Dyson Heppell won the clearance, kept his feet and used his agility to find space.
He had the option of kicking to the lead-up forward Jake Melsham, who had gained a metre on his opponent or going long to the contest between Michael Hurley and Michael Firrito.
Essendon took 11 marks inside 50 and 12 contested marks for the game so Heppell's decision to kick long was reasonable.
While the ball was in the air, the Kangaroos' 34-year-old veteran speedster Harvey drifted from the half forward flank towards the defensive side of the centre.
He was ready, as always, to switch to an offensive position in an instant.
The ball went over Hurley and Firrito's head and Scott Gumbleton chased it down, choosing to keep the ball alive rather than trying to dribble it out of bounds and set up for a stoppage.
Essendon scored eight goals from stoppages on Sunday so allowing for a boundary throw-in may have been a smart decision and enabled the Bombers to control the tempo of the game.
However Gumbleton's call was instinctive (and if you watched the football Friday night you couldn't fault his thinking) and he did well in the circumstance, putting Jetta into space with a handball.
Jetta chose to do a u-turn and hit trouble immediately. Rather than wear the tackle and protect the ball, he handballed indiscriminately over his left shoulder into space.
That was a dangerous thing for Jetta to do, almost as bad as an over the head handball in the backline.
Statistics tell why.
In round 20, 49 per cent of scores came from turnovers and 22 per cent of turnovers resulted in scores.
On Sunday North Melbourne scored 50 points from turnovers against Essendon's 25. The margin at that game's end was 24.
And the clincher: the Kangaroos generated three goals, four behinds from turnovers in its defensive half and four goals, four behinds from turnovers in the front half.
In other words it does not matter where a player is on the ground, giving the ball away makes his team vulnerable.
North Melbourne's Sam Wright played in front of his opponent and scrambled the loose ball to Shaun Atley who had returned to his feet quickly after putting pressure on Jetta.
Atley can accelerate so Sam Lonergan's missed tackle is no disgrace but it was crucial because it gave Atley space to run. Essendon had four tackles inside 50 compared to North Melbourne's 10 for the game. Atley took one bounce and kicked to Lachlan Hansen leading up on the wing.
Hansen had pushed up wide into a predictable position to give his teammate an option when under pressure. Remember, a kicker is only as good as his teammate makes him but the three players who kicked the ball in this counterattack - Atley (76 per cent disposal efficiency), Lachlan Hansen (80 per cent) and Sam Gibson (88 per cent) - were using it well.
This gave North Melbourne's runners the confidence to switch quickly into offensive mode. By contrast, any Essendon player who pushed hard forward - Lonergan, Nathan Lovett-Murray and Heath Hocking the most prominent - was in danger of being caught out of position if the forwards could not trap it in.
One team has had continuity, and confidence is flowing from it; the other team is battling with uncertainty created by injuries. Both teams are having a crack but North Melbourne's disposal efficiency on Sunday was 79 per cent to the Bombers' 66 per cent.
At that stage Harvey was cantering behind the centre circle but once Atley took off, he did too. He had two Essendon players - Mark Baguley and Harvey's opponent Courtenay Dempsey - between him and the goals.
While a fast break was beginning to build, the Bombers still looked in reasonable shape.
However as Harvey passed the centre circle he put his head down and passed both Bombers. Dempsey was like a sprint cyclist in the velodrome who had lost his bearing on his rival for one second, as Harvey shot off behind him.
He realised too late that Harvey was goalside and took off after him as North Melbourne whipped the ball down the wing with precise kicking. Dempsey could have shopped early and pushed and harassed Harvey from behind the centre circle before he was allowed to gather momentum, but he was concentrating on the ball.
Harvey is hard to stop when he senses a goal.
Harvey sprinted from 10 metres behind the centre circle to the top of the square in 10 seconds. With the distance between the centre circle of Etihad Stadium and the goal line about 80 metres, that's at a pace that would cover 100 metres in about 12.5 seconds.
Harvey hit the contest between Drew Petrie and Dustin Fletcher at top pace with Dempsey on his tail, gathered the ball with his right hand and kicked the 404th goal of his 342-game career.
The undermanned North Melbourne had stolen a break.
And a single passage of play taking 42 seconds had told the tale of what separated two teams.
Stats supplied by Champion Data
