‘Cost them a game’: Port defender’s cardinal sin ‘just dumb football’

Port Adelaide defender Esava Ratugolea has been roasted for an unforgivable mistake that had commentators tearing their hair out.

Esava Ratugolea had a game to forget.

Port Adelaide’s Esava Ratugolea might need a refresher in AFL defence after committing a cardinal sin in his side’s clash with Melbourne on Saturday night.

The Demons won 15.6 (96) to 13.11 (89) thanks to a five-goal final quarter, but a couple of errors from Ratugolea might have cost the Power the game.

The Power kicked the first three goals of the game to get off to a flyer at Adelaide Oval but the Demons fought back to head into halftime with both teams tied on 7.3 (45).

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Melbourne’s comeback was helped by a pair of mistakes from Ratugolea that led directly to straightforward goals.

Ratugolea misjudged a marking contest near Port’s defensive 50 and instead of spoiling the ball to safety, it bounced off him straight to Melbourne’s Bayley Fritsch.

Eddie Betts on Fox Footy simply said: “He’s just got to punch that ball forward.”

In the second quarter, Ratugolea was the last line of defence on the goal line when Melbourne’s Kysaiah Pickett kicked a snap from a set shot around 30m out from goal.

Pickett’s kick dropped right on the goal line but instead of spoiling the ball forward or marking it in front of the goals, Ratugolea went for the chest mark and dropped it behind the line — giving up the goal.

Esava Ratugolea dropped it behind the goal line. Photo: Fox Footy.

The unfortunate mistakes led Fox Footy’s Ben Dixon to say: “Ratugolea is now ‘Ratugol-error’.”

Betts joked he would have liked to have seen Port Adelaide coach’s Ken Hinkley’s reaction to the goal line blunder.

“This one, I wanted to see Ken’s reaction,” he said.

“You’re a tall forward! You’ve got to extend your hands.”

Footy journalist Rohan Conolly wrote on X: “OMG Ratugolea on his own but takes mark behind the goal line, that’s a sizeable sort of blunder!”

CODE Sports’ Lachlan McKirdy said: “Esava should have E-saved that one.”

Esava Ratugolea made a couple of costly defensive errors. (Photo by Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Big Sav had a night to forget. (Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images)

Hawthorn legend Dermott Brereton said: “Come on big fella. Step one step forward and touch it there. Or even mark it, a novel idea.

“We’re even and he’s given up two goals.

“Yes he is a good player. Yes he’s still learning the position, we cut him some slack for that.

“But that’s seriously IQ footy stuff. That is just dumb football.”

Betts added: “That could cost them in a game like this.”

Ratugolea, 25, joined Port Adelaide in the off-season after playing 77 games for Geelong as a swingman between forward, ruck and defence.

He hobbled off the field early in the fourth quarter against Melbourne with a leg complaint.

Those two goals did indeed prove costly in the end as Melbourne claimed a seven-point win in one of the best games of the season so far.