Port Adelaide’s damning admission on three gun recruits
PORT Adelaide has made the telling admission that it still hasn’t found the perfect roles for key off-season recruits Steven Motlop, Tom Rockliff and Jack Watts.
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PORT Adelaide has made the telling admission that it still hasn’t found the perfect roles for key off-season recruits Steven Motlop, Tom Rockliff and Jack Watts.
With just one home-and-away round left in the club’s disappointing year — it must beat Essendon at Adelaide Oval on Friday night to remain a mathematical chance of featuring in September — assistant coach Brendon Lade said its big-name acquisitions were still finding their feet at Alberton.
“Maybe we haven’t gelled as a team,’’ Lade said as one of the key reasons the Power — built up as a top-four side — has struggled for consistency and fallen away at the back end of the year.
“The inconsistencies probably show that. The inconsistency of our performance is something we have to work on.
“We can do it (play at a high level). We have shown that in beating good sides like Richmond, Sydney and Melbourne but we’re just not doing it for long enough.
“We will review the reasons why, we’ll review it hard because we’re doing a lot of things right but we’re inconsistent over four quarters.’’
Former Cat Motlop, ex-Lion Rockliff and former Demon Watts have largely not lived up to their billing as difference makers and Lade said “they are still fitting into our club’’.
“You don’t just fit in overnight,’’ he said.
“They are finding out where they belong, where they fit, what their roles are.
“We’re still finding out where the best place is to play ‘Mots’ and you’ve got to fit around other players as well.
“Rockliff was the main hit-to player (in the centre square) at Brisbane, here he is not at the moment, so we are still working through where they all fit into our team.
“We’re still exploring that because it is hard to fit in (to a new environment). I’ve been here for two years and I’m just fitting in now as a coach, so it does take a little bit of time.’’
Lade’s comments support dual Brownlow Medallist Chris Judd’s pre-season call that Port could be better in 2019 after bringing in three key players.
Lade said the Power’s immediate goal is to beat Essendon to keep its slim hopes of making the finals alive.
To sneak into the eight, Port must win and hope Gold Coast can pull off a monumental upset against Geelong at the Cattery.
“We’re disappointed with where we’re at but we’ve got a game on Friday night that we need to prepare for and win so we will be giving everything we’ve got to beat Essendon,’’ Lade said.
“We have to win first and then whatever happens after that happens, so we’ll roll out the best side we’ve got.
“There’s some people in good form in the SANFL (Sam Powell-Pepper and Jake Neade) and some people in the AFL side that are not quite in the form we’d like them to be, so we’ll look at all that and pick our best side to win.’’
andrew.capel@news.com.au