Port Adelaide has a white-collar midfield that fails under pressure

PORT Adelaide’s 22-point loss to Essendon at Etihad Stadium was not so much a nightmare revisited from last season’s duel under the roof but a reinforcement of recurring themes.

Ollie Wines leads the players off the ground.

SEEN this before, haven’t we?

And not just 10 months ago when Essendon made a mess of Port Adelaide in the first 17 minutes at Etihad Stadium. It has been a recurring theme since the man who gives Power midfielders an armchair ride - All-Australian ruckman Patrick Ryder - has limped to the medical rooms three weeks ago.

So it was going to get tougher, as it did in 2016 when Ryder was missing all season.

Joe Daniher of the Bombers flys high.

The Port Adelaide midfielders would need to be smarter - and this is where the noted football intellect of Brisbane recruit Tom Rockliff was to show up as a blessing. We are waiting.

The Power midfield would certainly need to - as its boss Michael Voss says - “get its hands dirty”. No, this is a white-collar midfield. Sam Powell-Pepper has much to answer for his club-imposed absence after burning the midnight oil on Hindley Street rather than changing the oil in the Rolls Royce (rather than Massey Ferguson) engine room.

All those lauded names - who make up the deeper-running but no more effective - Port Adelaide midfield need to deal with perception becoming reality.

Or maybe they are flat-track bullies?

The most deflating aspect of this game for coach Ken Hinkley is how his playbook was taken up by a group of Essendon players who were keener to reveal a hard-work ethic than his own.

On the “lessons” of last year’s 131-point blitz - and 70-point loss to the Bombers - on the “fast deck” at the Docklands, Port Adelaide was supposed to play a game that held up the opposition. Essendon did that.

Port Adelaide was planning to mix up its ball movement to allow its multi-dimensional attack - that regained Charlie Dixon as a full-time key forward (until the last quarter) while defender Dougal Howard took on ruck duties - to spread and torment a supposedly vulnerable Essendon defence.

Charlie Dixon of Port Adelaide and Tom Bellchambers of the Bombers.

The Power players simply became mixed up with what to do with the ball. The errors. No wonder Hinkley started to appear conscious of the Fox Footy cameras looking for his reactions to costly turnovers such as defender Dan Houston’s silver-service handpass to give Jake Stringer a stroll to an open goal.

And why was Stringer so often unmarked?

This game - and 22-point margin - was not as brutally damaging to Port Adelaide as last year’s match that Hinkley continually describes as an “exception” to what the Power showed in 2017. But the big failings in this match are not one-off issues. There are recurring themes that demand Port Adelaide rediscover its blue-collar ethos or continue to fail.

FIVE THINGS WE LEARNED

1 ESSENDON outplayed Port Adelaide - and beat the Power by living to the playnotes Ken Hinkley and his Port Adelaide coaching staff had crafted to slow down the Bombers on the speed track at Etihad Stadium. Critically, Essendon set the tone for the game from the first quarter by winning all the blue-collar markers such as clearances (+7), contested football (+11) and groundball gets (+11) in the first 31 minutes.

2 PORT Adelaide is in a first-half hole. In the past three weeks, the Power has lost the opening half by 14 points to Sydney, by 13 points to Brisbane and by 27 points to Essendon with a wasteful 4.7. The Power has kicked just 15 goals in the six first-half quarters they have played in the past three weeks.

3 PORT Adelaide’s midfield is appearing too much “white collar” than “blue collar” to live up to midfield coach Michael Voss’ demand of “getting your hands dirty”. Regardless of the ruck issue in the absence of All-Australian Patrick Ryder, the Power engine room needs to turn with players who act as if they have acid on the liver rather than dreaming for space to show their skills.

Jake Stringer of the Bombers celebrates a goal.

4 WINNING the ball is important. Keeping it is much more important. Essendon’s efficiency inside-50 where it held possession at 73 per cent in the first term - compared with Port Adelaide’s 46 per cent - was telling on the scoreboard at Etihad Stadium where the Power continues to leak 100 or more points for the 32nd time in 50 matches.

5 DOUGAL Howard is not finished with working as a ruckman. The refit of the makeshift ruck battery took Howard out of a key defensive position to start the ruck battle against Tom Bellchambers while Justin Westhoff returned to his roaming duties and was the second change in ruck. Key forward Charlie Dixon worked from the goalsquare until he led the ruck at the start of the last term.