Port Adelaide’s Showdown 48 demolition of their cross-town rivals begs the questions: How high can the Power climb in the 2020 season?
In the aftermath of the Showdown, the Power is preparing to head to the Gold Coast hub on top of the AFL ladder, with a heap of momentum and a small injury list. Is this their year?
Port Adelaide
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Forget the classic novel The Tale of Two Cities. This season’s script is “The Tale of Two Clubs” in one footy-mad city.
And while one of those clubs is facing the question: How much will we bottom out? The other is pondering: Just how high can we go?
In Saturday night’s record-breaking 75-point win over their cross-town rivals, Port Adelaide made a serious statement to the 2020 competition; that their claim as finals contenders is no piece of fiction.
The Power won every critical statistic by a truckload over Adelaide – including having 104 more disposals, 27 more inside-50s and 66 more marks – but despite their clinical demolition in Showdown 48, it was their flair that was exciting.
Take for example the Zak Butters goal he manufactured out of a half-volley kick, or the Steven Motlop leaping mark-of-the-year contender, or the Connor Rozee diving smother of Ben Keays kick-in, not to mention Xavier Duursma’s three goals and bow and arrow celebrations.
Despite all this, Hinkley says there’s still room for improvement.
“Clearly, we by no means had the perfect game,” he says.
Rozee interprets that as meaning the Power still needs to work on the way they start their matches.
In both wins in 2020 – against Gold Coast in round one and Adelaide in round two more than 80 days later – Port allowed their opponents to kick early scores.
“We tend to concede a couple of goals early quite often, so I’m sure that will be something we focus on again in the coming weeks,” Rozee says.
But Hinkley is proud of the way his team has been able to regroup after losing early starts.
On Saturday night, the Crows kicked two early goals before the Power responded.
“I was really pleased with that … we had to withstand a bit of pressure in the start of the game and that’s the team getting stronger and better and our back six players particularly held up really well for us in those moments,” he says.
“But then the collective come together and we put our run and our speed out there on the ground and we’re a pretty fast side now, which is really exciting for a coach.
“We’ve had this newer squad together now for over 18 months and that makes a big difference, when you bring in talented young people, talented mature people in Lycett and Burton and the young boys that always get talked about. and then you blend that with some absolute maturity at the top end and we’re starting to get somewhere.”
One area Hinkley isn’t criticising is accuracy in front of goal: he was more than pleased with the 17.8 his side kicked.
“Our scoring options, that’s been our Achilles heel, we’ve talked about that plenty of times,” he says.
“Against Gold Coast in round one, we kicked 1.10 and four out-on-the-full in the second half … conversion, as simple as it is, and we’ve been a little bit notorious for not being a great converting side, we’ve had plenty of chances and plenty of opportunities.”
Rozee was among the Power’s best, finishing the game with 17 disposals, six tackles, eight clearances and one goal.
“The one thing we were focusing on before the game was the battle of the midfield,” Rozee explains.
“We know (the Crows) have got some quality midfielders in the Crouch brothers and Rory Sloane as well, so I think that was a major focus and we were able to get on top after the first few goals were kicked, we were able to get the edge in the middle and that gave us the momentum to go forward and we were really dangerous once we got it in our forward 50 we’ve got all the young boys buzzing around down there and a bit of experience with big Charlie Dixon and Robbie Gray as well.”
Rozee finished the night equal second, alongside Duursma, in the voting for the coveted Showdown Medal, which was won by Travis Boak.
Boak, who also won the medal in 2013, says he was surprised to have won it.
“I was pretty lucky … there were probably five or six others who could have had it,” Boak says.
“Motts (Motlop) was outstanding tonight, our backline Darcy (Byrne-Jones), Trent McKenzie especially really early on they set the tone for us. Duursma, Rozee, there were so many and that’s the most pleasing thing, that we were able to spread that load and I was the lucky one to get it in the end.”
Rozee agrees with Hinkley that this Port side is quick, and it’s something they’ve been working hard to improve.
“It’s a lot easier when you’ve got a lot of naturally fast players, but we do a lot of drills that accelerate the ball and run it with legs rather than kicking it long all the time, so it’s definitely something we focus on at training, but helps when we have a few fast boys and young boys with energetic legs,” he says.
It also helps that Port’s 17 goals were shared among the group, including bags of three to Duursma, Justin Westhoff and Dixon.
Out of those three, Rozee says his favourite haul was Westhoff’s.
“It’s always nice when big Justin Westhoff gets on the end of a couple, he’s a pretty quiet guy, so the boys love getting around him,” he says.
In fact, there were so many positives to come out of the game that it’s best to leave it to the coach to sum it all up: “We’re a good team and … it was good to play like a good team again”.
Sure, there’s still a long way to go in the season, but as the squad prepares to head to the Gold Coast to take on Fremantle on Sunday evening sitting on top of the AFL ladder and with a small injury list, suddenly Hinkley’s pre-season declaration of “Look out, we’re coming” is no punchline.
Originally published as Port Adelaide’s Showdown 48 demolition of their cross-town rivals begs the questions: How high can the Power climb in the 2020 season?