Winning streak goes on but Port Adelaide tested by Eagles

THERE is no end in sight to Port Adelaide’s winning streak which grew to nine games on Sunday when the Magpies beat the Eagles by 23 points.

THERE is no end in sight to Port Adelaide’s winning streak which grew to nine games on Sunday when the Magpies disposed of the team posing the biggest threat to it, the Eagles, by 23 points at Alberton Oval.

The Eagles will be kicking themselves for conceding four goals in the opening 10 minutes because they didn’t do much wrong after that.

But Port proved why it is premiership favourite with a steely performance and had all the answers in a frantic final quarter with three goals in time-on.

Captain Steven Summerton was everywhere with 37 disposals, Jake Neade was lively all day and the Eagles had no answer to key forward Mason Shaw, who booted six goals in a breakout game.

Port is now two games clear on top of the ladder and although coach Garry Hocking says it has slipped defensively in recent weeks, it just keeps winning.

It may however be without Daniel Flynn this week who was reported for a bump on Chris Kane which left the Eagles midfielder with concussion and sparked a minor melee in the third term.

“We started really well but just can’t maintain the rage. The past three weeks I’ve been disappointed with scores against us,” Hocking said.

“The past couple of weeks we’ve been lucky to win, we’ve been really challenged by Central, which is a good club, and the Eagles would have learnt a lot and probably been looking at this game for a few weeks.

“So it’s something we’ve got to be mindful of, that teams are always going to be coming at us and we’ve set the benchmark a bit and make sure we maintain a standard of play and the way we defend each week.”

Eagles coach Michael Godden said there were positives to take out of the game.

“You’ve got to be careful to never accept a loss but from where we were last week (against Adelaide) ... we had a week of soul searching and as I said to them they’d be judged on their effort and not the result and their effort was really good,” he said.