The Lowdown: The major test Port Adelaide leaders have failed over massive losses
Port Adelaide’s humiliating 79-point home defeat – and the pressure it heaps on coach Ken Hinkley – is one of the AFL’s hot topics. MATT TURNER gives his likes and dislikes, plus The Lowdown.
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Port Adelaide’s humiliating 79-point home defeat – and the pressure it heaps on coach Ken Hinkley – is one of the AFL’s hot topics. It took the spotlight off the Crows, who had the bye. Matt Turner gives his likes and dislikes, plus The Lowdown.
DISLIKES
1. Lack of effort
The post-game review of Saturday’s home loss to Brisbane will be hard to watch for plenty of Port Adelaide players.
Structural breakdowns or poor decisions are going to happen to every team each week, but half-hearted efforts from the first bounce are a major concern.
Jeremy Finlayson’s chase on the western wing early in the match has already been highlighted plenty of times already and that is because it is symptomatic of what followed.
Finlayson was so casual as a Lions player ran forward on the western wing, rather than going full tilt to pressure or tackle.
He was not alone.
Fox Footy showed behind-the-goals vision of Port Adelaide players, including leaders Connor Rozee and Zak Butters, jogging back when the Power lost the ball during the first half.
We know how fast Port’s midfield can burst forward when it has the footy.
But when the opposition wins it, the same desire to sprint the other way is too often not there.
Other teams know this and the better ones are able to exploit it.
“Their numbers look pretty good and they work really hard on offence, but when they really need to dig in and chase, and help their defenders, they get beaten far too often,” Fox Footy’s Leigh Montagna said.
“We’ve seen it and that’s why they don’t beat the top teams.”
Asked post-game if workrate was an issue, Rozee told this masthead: “Not specifically. It’s us defending for way too long. Once that momentum goes against you and you’re defending for long periods of time, it can be really tough to have those fourth or fifth efforts.”
That does not explain some of those chases early in the match.
At that stage of the game, it comes down to a willingness to defend.
Only the players themselves will know why they are picking and choosing their intensity.
It looks like they want things the easy way at times.
Is coach Ken Hinkley’s message not getting through?
The “blowouts like that can happen if you keep trying to win the game” line does not wash.
Almost half of Port’s losses over the past two seasons (six of 14) have been by at least 42 points.
Collingwood has had none by that amount since the start of 2023, Melbourne one, Adelaide, Brisbane, Carlton, GWS, St Kilda and Sydney just two each.
When things go against the Power, it regularly gets belted.
That says something about the team’s mettle.
2. Conceding 12 goals in a row
Thousands of Power fans leaving during the last quarter left the Adelaide Oval crowd reminiscent of the club’s darkest days at Football Park at the start of the 2010s.
You know what else is a throwback to that era?
Port conceding 12 consecutive goals.
Until Saturday, the Power had not had a dozen majors in a row kicked against it since Collingwood did it at Football Park in round 20, 2011.
The Magpies won that match – which happened to be club great Chad Cornes’s farewell game for the Power – by 138 points.
It was a record AFL losing margin for Port until it was broken the following week when Hawthorn trounced it by 165 at the MCG.
Back then, the Power was close to its lowest ebb, finishing the season 16th with just three wins.
That it happened on Saturday to a Port Adelaide side that expected to have a deep finals run this year should be cause for alarm at Alberton.
Good teams do not give up 12-goal runs.
Since the start of the 2022 season, it has happened nine other times – all to sides that finished 12th or lower on the ladder, all considered to be rebuilding or in a development phase.
The only other team to cop it this year is 16th-placed West Coast.
Just as Cornes’s farewell game was ruined, so too was the Power’s celebrations of its 2004 premiership heroes.
So what did those flag winners think as they watched their former side capitulate while wearing the replica guernsey from 20 years ago?
Ruckman Dean Brogan told ABC it was “white flag stuff”.
3. Need more from Ollie
In the previous week’s loss to GWS, Wines played just 62 per cent of game time, had 18 disposals and 65 ranking points.
It was 17 possessions, 60 ranking points and 74 per cent time on ground on Saturday.
He is far from the only Power player down on form during the club’s three-game losing streak but if Port is to make anything of this year it needs to get more from the 2021 Brownlow winner.
Butters, Rozee, Jason Horne-Francis and Willem Drew remain the team’s first-choice midfielders over the course of the season.
Wines was at a mere 22 per cent of centre bounces against the Giants and 46 per cent on Saturday, which was more than Drew (41 per cent) and a little less than Rozee (49 per cent).
Last year Wines’s form was a casualty of an injury-hit pre-season.
This campaign he started well but his influence was well down the past fortnight.
Hinkley said post-game on Saturday: “The team collectively is not going great at the moment … and with that comes individual drop-offs. It gets really hard to be at your best if the team’s not and Ollie’s no different to the other players that are out there trying. Our midfield (regulars) are getting time together, but when the numbers go badly against you we ain’t going to just sit there … we’re going to try to make some adjustments.”
LIKES
1. Logan Evans’ debut
The rangy defender’s first game was one of the few bright spots for the Power.
After a slightly nervous start, he showed why Port was so keen to debut him less than a month on from taking him in the mid-season draft.
Put simply, he looked like an AFL player.
The 18-year-old took the game on, hit inboard kicks when he switched direction and read the ball well in the air.
He finished with 20 disposals, five marks, three score involvements and five intercept possessions.
“I thought he was a real positive,” Hinkley said.
“I think he’s shown he’s got a bright future as an AFL player.”
The Power has several other defenders not in the side, such as Ryan Burton (injured) and Dylan Williams, but Evans deserves to hold his spot for a while yet.
AND THE LOWDOWN ON …
Saturday’s match had an attendance of 32,863 – though more than 10,000 seemed to leave early in frustration as the Power was getting trounced.
You wonder how low the crowd figure will be when the club plays its next game at Adelaide Oval – another Saturday afternoon fixture, against the Western Bulldogs.
While the Bulldogs do not draw huge numbers in SA and the timeslot is unfavourable because it clashes with community sport, the Port faithful’s disenchantment is likely to be felt at the turnstiles.
The Power last had a home crowd of less than 30,000 in 2022 – a year where people were still a little reluctant to return to footy post-Covid.
Port Adelaide’s hierarchy will be hoping a return to form can boost attendances in the back half of the season, but much of the fan unrest is tied to wanting Hinkley gone.
You get the feeling the toxic atmosphere from late in Saturday’s game will not be a one-off at Power home matches until either results change or the coach does.
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