Port Adelaide faces a serious battle just to make the top 8 after crucial loss to Hawthorn
WAS it the heavy travel schedule or the horrible foot skills? It doesn’t matter now. After the Power’s loss to Hawthorn, the club is in a serious fight just to play finals in 2018.
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PORT Adelaide’s heavy travelling schedule has taken its toll and its foot skills will come under intense scrutiny after a three-point thriller to Hawthorn in Launceston.
Port went quiet for a long patch after the first quarter that would eventually seal the match for the Hawks in a game that will also feel like the one that got away.
It was a typical Hawthorn win — they kept playing keepings off to such an extent they had 50 more marks than Port Adelaide by the final break.
GAME RECAP: HOW THE HAWKS, POWER PLAYED OUT
GAME STATS: SEE ALL STATS AND SUPERCOACH SCORES
It leaves the Power in a fight to make the top eight having started like a premiership contender and then going terribly quiet as Hawthorn — with its superior kicking skills — chipped it around and made it look like a training drill until there was another burst from the Power in the final quarter.
Hawthorn had kicked six out of seven goals from the first-quarter break but what happened in the last — when Robbie Gray and Charlie Dixon lifted the side with goals to snatch an unlikely lead — broke what had been starting to look and feel like a one-sided game.
The worst part of Port Adelaide was its amount of turnovers when trying to take the ball into attack; it bounced out as quickly as it came in and then there would be another long string of Hawthorn possessions.
Tom Jonas led a defence that kept the match a lot closer than it deserved to be; Hawthorn had 59 inside-50s to the Power’s 38 and much of that could be attributed to how much more the Hawks had the ball in their forward half.
Tom Rockliff was another to keep the match in check with a good job of stopping Tom Mitchell from half time but this was not a match that reached any great heights.
There were highlights from the usual entertainers: Shaun Burgoyne for Hawthorn and Gray for the Power but for a fine day the game never had any real flow in it.
The scores were knotted at half time after a contrasting opening at the picturesque oval bathed in winter sunshine.
Port Adelaide was lively and enterprising early and after an intense first 10 minutes the Power was rewarded for its fierce forward pressure with a burst of goals from forward half turnovers.
Gray, as he does, put on a show when dancing around Ben Stratton to run into an open goal in the 11th minute.
His goal was followed by one on the run from Jack Watts and then another from Gray and when Westhoff slotted a checkside goal — he really didn’t want to use his left foot — it seemed the Power’s best-laid plans were working.
They had harassed Hawthorn to stop them from finding the groove for which it is known, when they control both the ball and the rhythm of the game.
Charlie Dixon and Justin Westhoff were busy in the front half and contributed with the things that are not always recognised: a bump and a block here and there, providing a contest when it looked like the Hawks were going to mop up, providing a link to get a player on the outside.
But something happened. Even though Port was winning both the hit-outs and the clearances — much of it through fine work from ruckman Paddy Ryder — Port Adelaide ran into the wall of Hawthorn.
Tom Mitchell, who is equal second in the Brownlow Medal betting, imposed himself on the game both with goals and busily chalking up disposals — he had a game-high 21 by half time — and the Power’s connection between its midfield and forward line kept breaking down.
There will be much made of the amount of 50m penalties, and the umpires were busy, but when Port Adelaide is forced to slow down it loses its air of danger.
BEST
Hawthorn
Burgoyne, Sicily, Roughead, Mitchell, Frawley, Gunston
Port Adelaide
Ryder, Jonas Gray, Wines, Westhoff, Ebert
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