Port fans may have to adjust to the likelihood that Port may not make the finals this season | Graham Cornes

Port fans may have to adjust to the likelihood that their beloved club may not make the finals this season, writes Graham Cornes.

The football world, particularly Port fans, may have to adjust to the likelihood that Port may not make the finals this season.

And that is not a reflection on Ken Hinkley or his coaching staff. Sometimes a club gets dealt a bad hand and has an unfortunate run of football luck.

Injuries hurt. In particular they hit hard when your depth is thin, which has been the case with the Power’s tall defenders and tall forwards.

However, it was Port’s midfield, which has been its real strength in its recent years of finals contention, that was most under pressure on Thursday night.

Eventually a team’s premiership opportunity passes. There is still time but it looks increasingly unlikely.

Ollie Wines of the Power in action. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Sam Powell-Pepper at Marvel Stadium. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

It was a stand-alone match and the football world was watching but Port Adelaide was never going to beat Essendon. They just didn’t know it. And the coach wouldn’t admit it.

Whenever has an AFL coach declared before a game that his team couldn’t win? Because sometimes, against all odds, they do win. The big mystery is why the betting companies had set Port as the favourites ($1.65).

Of course, Ken Hinkley had prepared his team to win. That is always the plan – to win. However, that old saying about battle plans not surviving the first contact with the enemy applies in a sporting sense as well. You can never predict what your opponents will throw against you.

Port does have a great record at that stadium and Essendon, having been humiliated by Adelaide the previous week, was struggling. But this is not the Port Adelaide team that finished last season’s minor round in second position on the ladder.

Ken Hinkley looks on after the kkoss to the Essendon Bombers. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Missing its best player in Zak Butters, its key signing of the summer, Jack Lukosius, key defender, Brandon Zerk-Thatcher, tall forward Todd Marshall, swingman Ryan Burton and young defender Lachie Jones, who was coming off his best game for the club, the Power was undermanned in key positions.

Essendon, too, has its injury problems, plus they are a young side in a rebuild. Ominously for Port, the Bombers were always going to respond to the previous week’s thrashing.

Why is that so? Why does it take a thrashing one week to extract the best from a team in its next contest? We saw it with Port the previous week against Richmond.

It’s all about character. If a team has any spirit at all it will rise and seek to atone for the previous week’s embarrassment.

So Essendon brought the heat and provided a contest. Port did not immediately capitulate.

We saw two committed teams “having a crack”. Essendon’s pressure levels were excellent and Port responded but it was not a great spectacle of Aussie rules football.

The pressure caused too many turnovers. It was an ugly, error-ridden game, most evident by Essendon’s inaccuracy in front of goals.

However, for three quarters at least, it was a contest. Port even looked to have taken the advantage at the start of the last quarter when Jason Horne-Francis goaled but Essendon, showing the character that had been lacking in some of its previous matches, responded.

To the delight of a fervent, loyal, manic crowd, the Bombers stormed home. It was the right result. The statistics can be misleading, but in this case they told the story.

Connor Rozee of the Power looks dejected after a loss to the Bombers. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Essendon dominated, particularly in the key stats of contested possessions and inside 50. In the last quarter Essendon controlled possession 49 per cent of the time compared to Port’s 35 per cent.

But the inside 50 count is most damning – 59 to 44. It’s not always the case but you won’t kick a winning score if you can’t get the ball deep into your forward-50 more times than the opposition.

So by the end of the game it was a celebration of the Bombers’ dominance and the Port players slinked off, heads down. There was not much the coach could have done in that last 20 minutes when Essendon finally shrugged off the shackles.

Essendon had planned well. It’s so much easier to plan against an opponent that has dominated the previous week. The captain, Connor Rozee, was targeted, tagged and suppressed. When Butters is playing and Horne-Francis is at his best, the opposition can’t tag all three.

After his dominant display last week Rozee was always going to be tagged hard so it was left to Horne-Francis to provide the spark and the inspiration that he has done so often in the past.

But the “Hornet” doesn’t look right. There is no enjoyment in his manner. He too easily responds to the goading and the attention of his opponents and in the past two weeks, he hasn’t had the impact that the team needs.

Against Richmond the previous week, it didn’t really matter that he had a quiet game but they needed him on Thursday night and he didn’t or couldn’t respond. He is often thrown forward to give the team a lift but that didn’t work on Thursday because Essendon dominated possession and the ball didn’t get there often enough.

One wonders whether the constant, uncalled-for booing and goading from the crowd is taking its toll. He obviously has a good relationship with Ken Hinkley but all clubs utilise sports psychologists these days. He may benefit from some professional therapy.

Football teams are complex organisms. They are difficult to coach. Is there a sport which has more players on the field than Aussie rules?

It wasn’t so bad when the best 18 players stayed on the ground unless one of them was injured, but the scourge of interchange rotations has dramatically changed the face of the game and the way players are coached.

Saad El-Hawli of the Bombers celebrates. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Does the game look better? I don’t think so. However, the one thing that has changed for the better is the player/coach relationship. Compassion in the connection presents the coach in a more personable, sympathetic light.

Old school attitudes would see it as softness but this generation of footballers respond to the carrot not the whip. That is Ken Hinkley’s strength and it still prevails in his 13th season in charge at Alberton. It will continue as this season gets tougher.

It will get easier if he gets key players back and his players bring the energy that they have in the two previous games.

But energy, intensity and pressure are not enough. They must be complemented by talent and suddenly that Port Adelaide list looks a little thin on talent.