Port Adelaide has major room for growth in attack when the Power resumes from its mid-season AFL break
PORT Adelaide is still searching for its best line-up in attack — and the goals promised with the big recruiting coups made in the AFL player market in October.
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SAM Gray is Port Adelaide’s leading goalkicker — 15.8 in nine AFL games this season.
“No; wouldn’t have picked that at the start of the year,” admits Power forwards coach Brendon Lade.
At the same time last season, Robbie Gray led Port Adelaide’s goalkicking chart with 20.10.
“Chad Wingard, Charlie Dixon and Gray ... Robbie Gray,” adds Lade of the Power forwards he — and many others — would have expected to dominate in the reloaded attack this year.
As Port Adelaide has its mid-season break early — to allow the players to recuperate from the AFL’s longest road trip to China — the question lingers as just where does the 6-3 Power sit in the race to September’s top-eight finals?
Top eight? Most probably. Top four? Not unless there is a cure to the team’s inconsistency. Premiership contender? Hold the voting slips for a little longer.
Port Adelaide prospects of rising from the middle of the AFL pack to a serious flag contender do hinge on the Power forwards. This is the area strengthened in the off-season with major gains in the trade and free-agency market — Jack Watts and Steven Motlop, in particular — after Season 2017 exposed the need for greater efficiency and productivity inside-50.
Port Adelaide is doing more inside-50, lifting its efficiency rate from 35 per cent to 40, albeit in a 18-team league with increased forward efficiency across the competition.
But the raw numbers are not as kind to the Power. Its average score in nine games this season is 86 points; down two goals on last year’s mark of 98 after nine matches.
By its own analysis, Port Adelaide should be scoring more. In the lead-up to last Saturday’s game in Shanghai — on a detailed study of the Power and Gold Coast players in head-to-head match ups — the depleted Suns attack was forecast to kick 44 points and was held to 42.
Port Adelaide was marked for 110 points ... but managed 82 with frustrating inaccuracy, particularly in the third term, to score 11.16.
The analysts were spot on ... the Port Adelaide forwards were not.
“And that is where we have to get better,” Lade said. “With the potential we have for inside-50s, scoring 25.15 is far better than 15.25. That accuracy is our next challenge.”
Port Adelaide’s new attacking power is built on a deeper midfield — that is definitely sounder with a fit Tom Rockliff, who came from Brisbane as a free agent. And it is completed by having more options around key forward Charlie Dixon, in particular with Watts and Motlop.
Despite all the credit Sam Gray deserves for his eagerness to score goals and more options meaning a greater spread of scorers, Port Adelaide’s leading goalkicking list should appear different today.
“We’re still working out the best positions — and the right balance (with the new players, Watts, Motlop and Rockliff),” Lade said. “They are learning a new system — and new teammates — and it does take time for them all to find where they belong at a new club.”
There has been the unexpected. Losing All-Australian ruckman Patrick Ryder (left Achilles tendinitis) for five weeks took Dixon from the goalsquare to the centre square to ruck.
Young gun Todd Marshall was struck by tragedy with the death of his father, six months after his mother died. He kicked nine goals in the first four games this season before taking compassionate leave from Alberton.
And there is the inevitable injury — as there was with Wingard’s hamstring setback — to stop a new-look attack becoming settled.
In assessing the big-name recruits — Watts (10.6 this season), Motlop (7.5, including the matchwinner in Showdown 44) and Rockliff, who missed three games with a calf strain — Lade makes the same assessment: The best is still to come.
“(Watts) is still finding where he belong in our forward line,” Lade said. “There’s been a couple of three-goal games (against Fremantle and Essendon). There’s been games with a couple of good quarters, but the challenge is there to play four quarters.
“We’ve seen the player we expect; we also expect to see it more. The same can be said with Motlop.”
BY THE NUMBERS
PORT ADELAIDE’S 2017 trade and recruiting strategy was to improve productivity and efficiency with its attack. The Power’s attacking results this AFL season (compared with 2017) suggest there is a work still in progress.
SCORES
Average 2018: 86 points
Average 2017: 98 points
CENTURIES
2018: 2 (v Fremantle and N Melbourne)
2017: 5 in first nine games
ACCURACY
(on all shots at goal)
2018: 47.3
2017: 46.1
INSIDE-50s
2018: 54 game average
2017: 59.4
MARKS INSIDE-50
2018: 10.9 average
2017: 13.4 average
LEADING SCORERS
2018 after nine games
SAM GRAY 15.8
CHAD WINGARD 11.15
ROBBIE GRAY 10.6
JACK WATTS 10.6
TODD MARSHALL 9.4
TRAVIS BOAK 7.6
STEVEN MOTLOP 7.5
CHARLIE DIXON 6.13
2017 after nine games
ROBBIE GRAY 20.10
CHARLIE DIXON 19.12
CHAD WINGARD 10.12
JARMAN IMPEY 10.1
TRAVIS BOAK 9.8
JACKSON TRENGOVE 9.3
AARON YOUNG 7.8
SAM GRAY 6.9
OLLIE WINES 6.3
SAM POWELL-PEPPER 6.3
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au
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