Port Adelaide rediscovers the speed — and space — that makes the Power dangerous on Adelaide Oval

PORT Adelaide advanced to 8-4 while showing again how dangerous the Power can be when it is given time and space to throw around the football on Adelaide Oval

Port Adelaide’s Jared Polec celebrates his goal with the crowd. Picture: SARAH REED

REMEMBER 2014?

It was Port Adelaide’s first AFL season at Adelaide Oval with a team that seemed to glide freely over the grass with such command of matches that Brownlow Medallist Gerard Healy dubbed the venue, “The Portress”.

They’re back … for “Throwback Thursday”. On a night when the forecast of heavy rain and blustery gales was supposed to bring on a slog, the footy gods ordained there would be enough clear air to allow the Power to waltz about in clear space on the Oval.

They’re dangerous when they are given time and space to throw around the ball these now confident and ambitious Port Adelaide players.

In the 17th minute, the Power scored its third of five first-quarter goals that was such a throwback to 2014 when coach Ken Hinkley took Port Adelaide to the last four with a preliminary final appearance.

The play had Charlie Dixon handpass to Robbie Gray, who handballed to captain Travis Boak, who handpassed to Ollie Wines, who snapped the goal.

They’re very convincing when the Power players are in this mood. If they could find this groove for more than 30-minutes bursts — as they did in the first term against the Western Bulldogs and in the second quarter with seven goals against AFL premiers Richmond six nights earlier — there would be more reason to believe Port Adelaide is bound for a top-four finish in the cluttered race to September.

Port’s Robbie Gray cleans up Toby McLean. Picture: Sarah Reed

Port Adelaide’s season record advances to 8-4 with the 57-point win against the Bulldogs. For the seventh time under Hinkley, the Power has followed up a confidence-boosting victory against the AFL premiers with no let-down in the next game.

Young Port Adelaide forward Todd Marshall returned to the AFL — after almost two months on compassionate leave following the death of his father, and then in the SANFL to rebuild form and fitness — in place of high-profile recruit Jack Watts.

Who knows how the crowd that did brave the winter storm front would have reacted had Marshall scored goals from his two shots in the 11th and 12th minutes? Their solidarity reaction with united applause in the 13th — in recognition of Marshall’s guernsey number — had to be interrupted to salute wingman Jared Polec’s remarkable snap from outside 50 on the northwestern flank.

As a statement of support for a player who has lost both parents in less than a year, the minute of applause was — as Hinkley promised — part of putting a smile back on Marshall’s face.

There is something sharp to Marshall, as there is to second-year midfielder Sam Powell-Pepper — two players who were not there in 2014, but should be key pieces to the Power’s next premiership puzzle in the next decade.

As a preview of what is to come as change in Season 2019, there were four field umpires (dressed in bright yellow) in control of this match. In control … or over-controlled?