Marvel Stadium collapse to rampant Kangaroos a night Power will want to forget
Port Adelaide started the night as favourite to lock in eighth place after the Crows’ earlier big loss, but ended it out of the top eight, leaking valuable percentage and taking a big hit in confidence.
Just when it looked like Port Adelaide had turned the corner and found solved its consistency issues the Power served up a performance like this.
On the back of finally claiming consecutive wins for first time since rounds 5 and 6, finals rival Adelaide blowing its big opportunity against Collingwood earlier in the day and North Melbourne coming off a big hiding at the hands of Geelong last time out everything was pointing towards the Power all but claiming a finals spot at Marvel Stadium last night.
When they are at their best the Power are good, really good.
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But last night, with so much to play for, their performance against the Roos wasn’t just bad — it was horrendous that now has the Power out of the eight behind fierce rivals the Crows as their percentage was wiped out.
The Power’s habits of starting games slowly returned, they butchered the ball inside 50 and their midfield was made to look slow and pedestrian.
But worryingly for Ken Hinkley, his side got uncharacteristically smashed in contested possessions (124 to 175) as they were blown away by a North Melbourne side only playing for pride after a heavy loss the week before.
After only managing just 14-points in their thrashing at the hands of the Cats last week, the Roos found their shooting boots with Ben Brown and Nick Larkey tormenting what usually is a rock-solid Power defence, ending up with 10 and five goals respectively.
Hinkley said everything “you can get possibly wrong we got wrong”.
“We were belted in key areas of the game that we are usually pretty good at,” he said.
“They were better than us in every part of the game.
“We know that we are way better than that performance ... we have seen in the last couple of weeks other sides have a disastrous game but they turned it around and bounced back.
“So that’s up to us ... with one round to go there’s so much to play for.”
Hinkley said it would be easy to say that dumped premiership ruckman Scott Lycett might have done a better job than Power duo Peter Ladhams and Paddy Ryder in the ruck against North Melbourne star Todd Goldstein but that’s was what Port didn’t need to do.
“We will show up next week and be better than that because we were so bad,” he said.
“Clearly he (Goldstein) was the best player on the ground... he smacked us.
“That’s an easy question to ask (whether Lycett would have done better)... we could have maybe had Scott Lycett out there but he went out for a couple of reasons.”
THE GOLDSTEIN TOUCH
The ruck combo of Peter Ladhams and Paddy Ryder worked a treat in the Power’s wins over Essendon and Sydney.
But neither the Bombers or Swans have a fit premier ruckman and North’s Todd Goldstein put on a ruck masterclass under the roof for the Roos.
His outstanding performance was summed up when he outmuscled Ryder following a boundary throw, sharply turned and snapped a fine goal on his left foot.
WESTIE’S HORROR START
After his successful move to defence in recent weeks, Hinkley said during the week that he wished he had a couple of more players like Westhoff.
But after some fine performances in recent weeks, Westhoff had a game to forget — with the veteran struggling right from the off.
The game was barely a minute old when he gave away a free kick, allowing Larkey to kick his and the game’s first goal and Westhoff’s woes didn’t end there.
Soon after he misjudged the flight of the ball, allowing Brown to kick his first and at the 13 minute mark of the first Larkey continued his dominance of the Port veteran to kick his second and North’s third without reply.
He wasn’t the only Port defender to struggle though, it was a torrid night for all in the backline.
BROWN MAKES COLEMAN PLAY
The star North Melbourne forward picked an ideal time to have a career-best outing.
Last night the star Tasmanian kicked the most goals by a North Melbourne player in a game since the great Wayne Carey bagged 10 against Essendon in 1999, registering his 10th of the night early on in the fourth quarter.
Tom Clurey kept Brown goalless in the two teams’ last encounter earlier this season but the Kangaroo gave him the run around to overtake GWS’ Jeremy Cameron in the race for the Coleman Medal.
Clurey wasn’t the only one who tried and failed to stop the Brown juggernaut, co-captain Tom Jonas and Westhoff also had cracks but couldn’t come close to the red-hot Roo.
BOAK’S BACK
There were little to no positives for the Power in the heavy loss, but former captain Travis Boak was impressive after a couple of quiet weeks.
After being tagged by the Bomber’s Dylan Clarke and the Swan’s George Hewitt, recording his lowest amount of disposals for the season, the Roos chose not to tag the frontrunner for Port’s best and fairest and he made the most of it.
On a horrendous night for the Power, Boak finished with 28 disposals and six tackles, and didn’t stop trying despite the game being all but lost from at least halftime.
SCOREBOARD
NORTH MELBOURNE 6.3, 12.8, 17.9, 22.12 (144)
PORT ADELAIDE 1.1, 3.4, 7.6, 8.10 (58)
BEST — North Melbourne: Brown, Goldstein, Polec, Higgins, Simpkin, Larkey, Ziebell
Port Adelaide: Boak, Houston, Amon, R Gray
GOALS — North Melbourne: Brown 10, Larkey 5, Higgins, Goldstein, Simpkin, Ziebell, Polec, Garner, Zurhaar. Port Adelaide — R Gray 3, Amon 2, Rozee, Dixon, Ryder.
UMPIRES — S. Meredith, N. Williamson, C. Dore
CROWD — 17,063 at Marvel Stadium
VOTES — 3: Ben Brown (North Melbourne); 2: Todd Goldstein (North Melbourne); 1: Jared Polec (North Melbourne)