Internal challenges at Power overshadow the pundits’ theme of Port Adelaide rising to top four

PORT Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley has raised the bar at Alberton setting a challenge that is more demanding than the external expectations of the Power being a top-four contender.

Sam Powell-Pepper sprints past Jack Trengrove in Port Adelaide's intra-club match.

PORT Adelaide’s internal expectation - as delivered by coach Ken Hinkley at the AFL club’s groundbreaking members’ convention - completely overshadows the top-four benchmark thrown on the Power by the pundits.

“We want to be the best - not one of the best; the best,” Hinkley told the Port Adelaide members at the in-house session at Alberton on Saturday in the forum the Power billed as a first in Australian sport.

Tom Jonas and Todd Marshall battle during Port Adelaide's intra-club match.

External markers on Port Adelaide - a team that has not won a final since 2014 - are up significantly based on the busy off-season work of list manager Jason Cripps who has delivered free agents Tom Rockliff (Brisbane) and Steven Motlop (Geelong) and Melbourne duo Jack Watts and Jack Trengove amid 11 changes at Alberton.

But Hinkley’s demands for success is not based on the talent the Power has garnered in the October-November market, but the six years of an “enormous” rebuild of the Port Adelaide football program since he arrived in October 2012.

“And I think the boys are getting ready (to collect on that investment),” Hinkley said.

Port Adelaide’s work in the summer, Hinkley confirmed, was built on a predictable response to last season’s repetitive themes, in particular the Power’s inability to have its on-field advantages reflected in its scoring.

Hinkley refers to Port Adelaide’s failure to put the league’s best record for creating inside-50s on the scoreboard as the “casino syndrome” - “turning something into nothing”.

“We must maintain the ball better,” Hinkley said. “We gave it up to easily (last season).

“We have to get better at kicking more goals - and we have focused on it like never before.”

But for the extra attention on attack and moving the ball neatly to the Power’s key forwards led by Charlie Dixon, Hinkley’s long-standing mantra at Alberton of “defence, defence, defence” is an even greater demand on all his players.

“If you think attack is going to win finals, you are wrong,” Hinkley said. “Its defence - you will not win without defence.”

Brad Ebert and Tom Rockliff during Port Adelaide's first intra-club match.

Hinkley’s vision for Port Adelaide in Season 2018 is to have the AFL’s most manic team when the Power is without the ball.

“When you see an opposition player with the ball, I want you to see someone (from the Port Adelaide team) coming at them - and fast,” Hinkley said.

Port Adelaide returned to the AFL top-eight last year - for the first time in three seasons - with a notable record of always beating the bottom-10 teams and repeatedly falling short of its top-eight rivals.

“We were good against the bottom-10; reasonable against the top-8,” Hinkley noted. “We have to turn those close losses (against top-eight sides) into big wins.”

Hinkley, unlike many of his AFL counterparts, embraced laying out his philosophies to his club’s members on Saturday believing the more his fans understand the Port Adelaide playbook, the less frustrated - and critical - they will be at games.

Hinkley dismissed the need for grand secrecy on tactics saying an AFL gamestyle should be “instinctive and predictable”.

“Everyone should understand (the game style) so that when (a team) is under the most pressure, the players do it automatically,” Hinkley said.