Midfield mix gets Port on track

CAPTAIN Dom Cassisi's days as a midfield mainstay at Port Adelaide are over.

Gary Ablett

CAPTAIN Dom Cassisi's days as a midfield mainstay at Port Adelaide are over.

Coach Matthew Primus is so confident in the brigade of talented on-ball youngsters he has at Alberton that he says Cassisi will only be used sparingly in the centre square for the rest of his career.

Cassisi, 29, has been the one constant in the Power's midfield since the club's historic 2004 premiership.

But Primus revealed he would now be employed primarily as a half-back flanker as young players such as Matthew Broadbent and Hamish Hartlett and key off-season recruits Brad Ebert and John McCarthy join Travis Boak and Danyle Pearce in stepping up in the middle.

"We have huge belief in them," Primus said of his new midfield players after they inspired Port's 48-point victory against Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium on Saturday.

The win gave the Power consecutive wins in a season for the first time since the final two rounds in 2010.

And it was built on the club's best midfield display of the year with Broadbent, Ebert, McCarthy, Boak, a rejuvenated Pearce, Hartlett, Matt Thomas, Chad Wingard and veteran Kane Cornes, in a tagging role, combining for 36 inside-50s, 34 clearances and 11 goals.

Between them they managed just eight fewer inside-50s than Port has averaged for the year. The club had a season-high 61 forward 50 entries against the Suns on the way to booting its highest score for two years. It kicked seven goals in a brilliant 14-minute third quarter surge which quickly turned a close game into a one-sided one.

"Until now our midfielders haven't quite been getting enough of the ball," Primus said.

"We've had one player standing up (each week) and three or four who haven't. But this week, we had a lot of midfielders get a lot more of the ball, which takes pressure off the backs and gives our forwards good opportunities.

"That was the pleasing thing, especially given some of the mids who were getting tags were still able to generate enough of the ball.

"There's a lot of development going on but you can see them improving quarter by quarter and week by week."

Boak shook off his contract drama and a host of taggers to produce his best performance of the season, capped off by an equal-career best three goals.

The dashing Pearce (28 disposals) played his second big game in a row, former Eagle Ebert maintained his status as the club's most consistent midfielder in his first year at the club while Broadbent's rise from average to good has been dramatic in the past month.

While they were doing the job in the middle and Cornes was following Gary Ablett all over Metricon Stadium, Cassisi was stationed at half-back.

He has had significant stints at half-back in the past two weeks, but this time he rarely moved from there.

"It helps with our (midfield) development with Dom out of there and Kane not in there as much," Primus explained.

"It gives a chance for Hamish, Broadbent, Wingard and Thomas, all those guys to have more opportunity to go on ball. We know what Dom can give us and we'll have to go to him at times and probably lean on him - and the same with Kane. But if we are going to be a good team in 12 months, 18 months, two, three and four years time then we need to expose our (young) onballers to as much time in the middle of the ground as possible."

Cornes backed Primus's confidence in the club's new-look midfield, saying its young onballers could form an elite combination.

"Broady (Broadbent) has had a massive step up over the past four or five weeks," he said.

"Whether that's been noticed externally, I'm not too sure. But certainly internally his form and his progress has been noted and he's certainly become a very good midfielder for us.

"You throw in Boaky, who was outstanding, Hartlett, Ebert and McCarthy and the depth is really good.

"The guys we've mentioned are all aged in their low twenties so their best football is in front of them and the more they play together the better they will get."