Banged-up Port Adelaide laments wasted opportunity in the west and vows to hit back hard against GWS

Port Adelaide veteran Justin Westhoff admits the Power wasted a golden opportunity against an injury-hit Fremantle and must now regroup to face the in-form GWS Giants

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JUSTIN Westhoff says it is back to the drawing board for Port Adelaide after it was given a harsh reality check by Fremantle in Perth on Sunday.

Playing to join premier Richmond and West Coast at the top of the table on 12 wins, the Power wasted what Westhoff labelled a “golden opportunity’’ and now faces an in-form GWS at Adelaide Oval on Sunday without possibly its two best players — lead ruckman Paddy Ryder (hip) and star forward-midfielder Robbie Gray (concussion).

“It was a weird one, to dish that up was pretty disappointing,’’ key swingman Westhoff told The Advertiser of the nine-point loss which snapped a five-game winning streak.

“I thought the effort was there but our skills let us down which is something that we need to continue to improve.

“We’ve come a long way with our skills in the past few years but this game showed that we’ve still got a long way to go.

“Our skills were poor and we didn’t make the right decisions at times either, which was disappointing and proved costly.

“We fumbled the ball and missed kicks and it all snowballed in the outcome of the game and it cost us a chance to go obe step further in the season.

“We’ve been on a good run but we don’t want to lose like that. It was a step back with our consistency, which is something we try to pride ourselves on.’’

Port had its win streak ended by a Fremantle side playing without Brownlow Medallist midfielder Nat Fyfe and star ruckman Aaron Sandilands.

The Power lost Ryder and Gray by the four-minute mark of the third quarter but was off its game from the start in greasy conditions at Perth Stadium, where Port is now 0-2 after also losing to West Coast in round seven.

Port generated just 39 inside 50s to the Dockers’ 58 on Sunday despite having 17 more disposals and five more clearances.

It kicked just seven goals for the game and did not score in the second quarter.

Instead of finishing the round equal top with the Tigers and Eaglkes, the Power fell to fifth with a crucial match looming against the Giants.

“They’ve got some key players back from injury and are playing good footy now so it will be a tough one for us,’’ Westhoff said.

“It’s a big game now and we’ve just got to get back to playing some of the pressure football we’d played leading into the Fremantle game.

“There will be a few big points that will come out of this game that Ken (coach Ken Hinkley) will want to get on top off, I’m sure.’’

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