Port Adelaide defender Dougal Howard says a searching review of the loss to West Coast has revealed what went wrong
PORT Adelaide defender Dougal Howard says the club has undertaken a searching review of what went wrong in the dying stages of Saturday’s heartbreaking loss to West Coast and that it doesn’t make pretty viewing.
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PORT Adelaide defender Dougal Howard says the club has undertaken a searching review of what went wrong in the dying stages of Saturday’s heartbreaking loss to West Coast and that it doesn’t make pretty viewing.
“We’ve looked at it pretty closely as a team and as a backline and we should have done things differently,’’ Howard said of a final-minute meltdown that has destroyed the Power's top four hopes and left it with a fight on its hands just to make the finals.
Howard said injuries to key big men Paddy Ryder (hip) and Charlie Dixon (broken leg) — out of the game by three-quarter time — had robbed Port of options but that it was still guilty of making some bad tactical and positional moves which proved costly.
He said defensive leader Tom Jonas should have manned up on Eagles matchwinner Jeremy McGovern when he roamed forward for the last, match-defining play instead of midfielder Brad Ebert, who was caught out of position and outmarked.
Regular defender McGovern — who had been beaten by livewire Port forward Aidyn Johnson in just his ninth game — marked a hurried kick from ruckman Scott Lycett with 24 seconds left and goaled after the final siren.
“In the moment it all went pretty quickly but I recall Tommy was trying to get the (positional) handover done with Brad but I think Brad was a bit nervous about going deep (in defence),’’ Howard said.
“Brad is as good as any midfielder in the air but it would have been great to have ‘Jona’ on McGovern but unfortunately we couldn’t get it done and the ball’s landed in his lap.’’
Jonas was stuck in the goalsquare on the smaller Liam Ryan while Howard was matched up on tall Nathan Vardy.
Howard said Port’s go-to defensive play is to put tall swingman Justin Westhoff as a loose man in the backline but was he was forced to ruck with Ryder and Dixon out of the game.
“Without the injuries you can guarantee ‘Hoff’ would have been back there as the spare,’’ he told Sportsday SA.
“But we definitely could have still worked it better because we had Robbie Gray as the spare when in the same situation we would have loved to have got him in the midfield because he’s one of the best clearance players in the comp, so it was a bit disappointing we couldn’t get him in the middle for the last two stoppages.
“And we could have probably pulled (tall forward) Jack Watts back a bit deeper to play on McGovern as well.’’
Howard described the loss as “pretty heartbreaking’’ and “a bit of deja vu” after Port also lost last year’s elimination final to the Eagles with a goal after the siren.
“It was hard to comprehend what had happened,’’ he said.
While the Power has lost four of its past five games to fall to eighth, Howard said it is doing 90 per cent of things right but that the other 10 per cent “isn’t up to standard’’.
Howard, meanwhile, has rated Greater Western Sydney as the best side Port has played against this year.
“We haven’t played Richmond in Melbourne but GWS over here (in round 18) were pretty handy,’’ he said.
“With the likes of (Lachie) Whitfield, (Josh) Kelly and (Stephen) Coniglio running off half-back and through the midfield it’s hard to stop.’’
andrew.capel@news.com.au