Sturt battled to peg back a big first-half deficit before falling to Port Adelaide in the SANFL qualifying final

STURT’S mental resolve to battle back from a huge first-half deficit will hold the team in good stead next week, according to coach Marty Mattner.

Sturt’s Zane Kirkwood celebrates kicking a goal during his side’s second-half surge in the qualifying final. Picture: Tom Huntley

STURT coach Martin Mattner will focus on the positives of the second half in Saturday’s loss to Port Adelaide as the Double Blues prepare to rebound against Central District.

The reigning premier coughed up nine unanswered goals in the second term but hit back with five in a row in the third to storm back into the game.

“It won’t be hard to get up for next week because I reckon our second half was pretty good and we’ll talk about the positives of that,” Mattner said.

“It’s disappointing but I’m pretty proud of the boys to come back against hot form.

“We gave them nine goals in a half and they only kicked 13 so I’m proud but disappointed.”

Mattner said winning the footy around stoppages got his side going after halftime.

“Getting hold of the footy is one thing, in the second quarter they just dominated time in forward half but we lifted around the ground,” he said.

“We had some guys step up which we talked about and guys lifted and played the Sturt brand of footy.

“We talked about trying to play that way and we did, we felt like we controlled the ball and got hold of it, we were actually moving it quite well.

“But again - we can’t just give a team a five-goal quarter in a final and that was the difference.”

Port Adelaide coach Chad Cornes said he too had mixed emotions about the result and said his side would learn plenty from the win going into next week’s clash with minor premier Woodville-West Torrens.

The Eagles beat Port Adelaide by 21 points in Round 6 and 27 points in Round 11.

“The good thing about that game is we won and there is so much to learn from to make us go even deeper into the finals,” Cornes said.

“Clearly they’re (Eagles) the best team in the comp during the year, who’ve beaten us twice, but that’s six (wins) in a row now so we feel we’re in very good form and if we can get things right from today that we’ll learn from, it should be a great match up next week.

“They’re (Eagles) a very disciplined team so we’ll have to learn from how they’ve beaten us in the past and adjust going forward.”