Where were Port Adelaide’s leaders in latest disastrous after-the-siren loss?
PORT Adelaide’s performance against West Coast on Saturday night was another example why leadership groups are the most overrated concept in the modern game. Plus, see this week’s winners and losers.
- Port’s finals dream hinges on power of positivity
- Analysis: Pyke’s pressure test as Crows face long summer
- Dixon’s done, Ryder on watch list
- Tight-game complex tearing Power apart
PORT Adelaide’s performance against West Coast on Saturday night was another example why leadership groups are the most overrated concept in the modern game.
The Power’s seven-man leadership group includes captain Travis Boak, Ollie Wines, Charlie Dixon, Brad Ebert, Tom Jonas, Tom Rockliff and the injured Hamish Hartlett.
Voted in by their peers, the group is required to meet each Monday with coach Ken Hinkley and dissect their own and the team’s performance.
In these meetings Hinkley rates his leaders on their ability to stand up on game day.
With Dixon off injured in the last quarter and Hartlett unavailable there were five members of the leadership group that failed in the dying stages of Saturday’s game.
With two minutes left to play, Port Adelaide led by eight points when Jasper Pittard won the ball across half back and switched the play to Steven Motlop who marked uncontested on the outer wing.
The moment Motlop marked, the Power coaches box would have felt enormous relief knowing their players have rehearsed this exact situation many times at training.
Instead of stopping and going back off the mark to milk vital seconds off the clock before finding a teammate sideways with another short uncontested mark, Motlop inexplicably played on and hacked an under-pressure kick forward straight to the spare Eagles defenders who were set up in the Port forward line.
Where were the five on-field leaders instructing their new recruit what to do?
After the Eagles cleared the ball from their defensive 50, Power defender Tom Clurey marked the ball 70 metres out.
At this moment there is one minute 50 seconds left on the playing clock and the Power still led by eight points.
Clurey has 60 AFL games to his name and should know what to do in this situation.
But it’s the leadership groups responsibility to drill the message home and enforce the message.
This didn’t happen.
Instead of going back off the mark, taking his full allotted time and finding the spare man, in Motlop, positioned behind him, Clurey panics.
His rushed long kick inside 50 was too central and played into the hands of the Eagles biggest strength, their intercept marking.
Unsurprisingly Eagles defender Tom Barrass marked the Clurey kick and regains possession for the Eagles.
With one minute 16 left in the game Eagles matchwinner Jeremy McGovern makes a dangerous switch across goal.
The ball bounces towards Ebert who should gather the ball and kick a goal to seal the match and the four points.
Ebert unforgivably overruns the ball which kickstarts a nightmare 70 seconds for the former vice-captain.
The error leads to an Eagles goal and puts them only two points down with the clock stopped at 54 seconds.
At the stop of play another giant leadership fail unfolds as McGovern is thrust forward and catches Port off guard.
Instead of the Port Adelaide defence reorganising so that Jonas or Dougal Howard pick him up, it is the undersized Ebert who takes the match-up.
The Eagles hack the ball forward from the stoppage and Ebert has no hope against one of the best marks in the AFL and is beaten in the air.
Game over.
This series of leadership fails will again be dissected in detail at the leadership meeting at Alberton today.
But what’s the value of talk, if there is no action when it matters most?
WINNERS
1. Points to Clurey
DESPITE his brain fade late in the game, Port Adelaide’s Tom Clurey convincing beat Eagles star Jack Darling, holding him to only eight possession and keeping him goalless.
2. On fire
RICHMOND’S Jack Riewoldt produced the best individual performance of the season. His 10 goals against the Suns moves him to equal first with North’s Ben Brown in the race for the Coleman Medal.
3. Genius
ALASTAIR Clarkson’s coaching performance in 2018 further cements his status as the best coach in the history of the game.
4. Smith shape
BRODIE Smith was Adelaide’s best player in only his second game back since returning for a knee reconstruction. Physically he looks in career-best shape which is a credit to his dedication while in rehabilitation.
5. Silky Shaun
HATS off to Shaun Burgoyne, who signed on at Hawthorn during the week to extend his career into a 19th season. He laid 13 tackles against Geelong on Saturday, not bad for a 35-year-old.
LOSERS
1. Wounded
KEN Hinkley put on a brave face as he fronted the media after the match on Saturday but deep down he would realise it will take an extraordinary performance to make the eight with Charlie Dixon and Paddy Ryder on the sidelines.
2. Nightmare
ADELAIDE captain Taylor Walker could only manage six disposals in his side’s loss to the Giants on Saturday night. He will also face suspension for a brutal sling tackle that left Giants’ star Josh Kelly concussed. What a nightmare 2018 it has been for Tex.
3. Gazza flop
GARY Ablett Jnr won a free kick in the first quarter against Hawthorn for what could only be described as a blatant dive. It’s disappointing the umpires keep rewarding players for these actions.
4. Not fair
NO footballer deserves to be dealt the hand Sydney’s Alex Johnson has been dealt. He suffered a sixth ACL tear in his knee when he buckled to the ground at the MCG yesterday.
5. Start the review
ADELAIDE and Fremantle are the only two teams since the year 2000 to finish minor premier and then miss the finals the following year. Let the review at West Lakes begin.