Port Adelaide’s loss to North Melbourne has been dubbed the worst since the 2007 Grand Final but Ken Hinkley says the Power cannot overreact
Coach Ken Hinkley says Port Adelaide can’t “overreact right now” in the wake of an 86-point thrashing club great Kane Cornes has described as the Power’s worst loss since the 2007 grand final.
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One club great has dubbed it the worst loss since the 2007 grand final, but Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley says what the Power can’t do is “overreact” in the wake of their 86-point thrashing at the hands of North Melbourne.
Port went into Saturday night’s clash against the Kangaroos in Melbourne in control of its finals’ destiny, with a win almost all but sewing up a top eight spot.
But now Port Adelaide needs other results to go its way if it is to even be a chance of September action, as the Power’s percentage advantage over other finals contenders was obliterated by a Roos outfit that remarkably kicked just the 14-points in their last encounter.
Port Adelaide greats have vented their disgust at the performance the Power served up against the Roos.
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Kane Cornes said it was “disgraceful” and the worst loss for the club “since Port Adelaide lost the 2007 premiership” to Geelong given the stakes at play, while Warren Tredrea described the performance as “pathetic”.
Hinkley said the loss had now put Port “in a bit of a scramble” with just one game to go of the home and away season and the Power had to “brush ourselves off”.
“It is clearly incredibly disappointing and the performance was so far away from what we have been,” he said.
“But what we need to do is not overreact right now and make sure we get the details and look at the game closely.
“We won’t miss looking really closely though to find the opportunities to improve ourselves and give ourselves a chance.”
The thrashing at the hands of the Roos came just after Port’s finals aspirations received a big boost when Adelaide blew its big chance against Collingwood back in South Australia.
Hinkley said he thought his players didn’t look complacent, just “outplayed”.
“If you look at the players we played against, (Todd) Goldstein, (Shaun) Higgins, (Ben) Cunnington, (Jack) Ziebell you put our names up against them we are capable of being way better than we were (against the Roos),” he said.
“That doesn’t mean we are capable of winning every week, no side in the competition is capable of winning every week, but we are way more capable than the performance we put out there.
“And I think that is really clear, let’s not go looking for everything right now lets look at the detail, let’s make sure we are clear on the detail and we will look at it really really closely to give us a chance of getting better than that performance.
“Because we can nearly turn up next week and we will be better than what we were (against North) because that was so bad we have to own it.”
Goldstein had a field day out against the Port duo of Pete Ladhams and Paddy Ryder in the ruck but Hinkley said whether dumped Premiership ruckman Scott Lycett would have done a better job at Marvel Stadium was a “easy question” to ask about why the Power played so poorly.
Rather Hinkley said his side got smashed around the contest, and got overrun by a North Melbourne outfit that “flipped” its game plan around.
The Roos finished with a whopping 514 disposals to Port’s 307, the sixth-highest differential in VFL/AFL history and the ninth-highest uncontested possession differential — 341 to 176.
They won 45 clearances compared to the Power’s 24, 22 to 10 in the centre, and had 63 inside 50s to Port’s 41.
Ben Brown had a field day out against the Power, kicking 10 goals to take the lead in the Coleman Medal, while Nick Larkey kicked five goals.
Hinkley said he felt sorry for defenders such as Tom Clurey, Tom Jonas and Justin Westhoff who had to face the Roo barrage head on — but backed them to bounce back.
“It’s simple they are paid to perform,” he said when asked how his defenders would bounce back.
“We’ve got to go out and do it again … good luck to them (his defenders) they were faced with a barrage there wasn’t much they could do by the end to stem the enthusiasm of the ball that was coming at them they were in a position where they were just doing their best to try and hang on.”