PORT Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley said his players believed they could win from anywhere after a stunning second half booted Fremantle out in straight sets in the semi-final at Patersons Stadium last night.
The Power were 31 points behind late in the second term before storming home with a 12-goal second half to win by 22 points.
"It was a very brave performance, we could have quite easily, possibly, probably rolled over away from home against a great side with the amazing pressure they were putting on us," Hinkley said.
"But at half-time I said to them; 'that's not us, that's not the way we are going to go down. If we are going to go down, let's go down the Port Adelaide way'.
"And that's having a crack."
Hinkley said he was asked to promise supporters something when he started as coach and he decided that it would be "we will never give up".
"They know our best footy is good enough … these boys know that they can come from anywhere almost," he said.
"We have played over my time some amazing comeback football. We don't want to do that though, we want to play the footy we played last week (against Richmond) and get the game under control.
"But when you play quality at this time of the year … they are going to have time when they put you under pressure."
He said at half-time he simply urged players to express themselves on the big stage.
"As coaches we've said sometimes you've got to crash the car you've built a little bit and it is going to cause us some problems at times, it's going to cause us some heartbreak … but at the end of the day we are going to go down the way that Port plays," he said.
"It was more about what they weren't giving themselves … they just weren't representing themselves well.
"It becomes personal in finals and that's what it needs to be. You've got to be able to stand up in big games and none bigger than finals."
Hinkley said Fremantle's first-half dominance had forced him to match-up on the Dockers' loose man in defence, and admitted they were lucky to be still in the contest.
"We needed to get it back into a contest … we had to make a brave call to go that way and we went there and in the end it was a great result for us," he said.
"I reckon Freo left us in the game, they missed some shots and we missed a couple but they missed a lot more. I thought one or two goals just before half-time just gave our boys a little bit of a sniff, OK scoreboard is not that far away and we know how powerfully we run out games."
He promised more of the same next week in the preliminary final against Hawthorn.
"We know Hawthorn's had a rest, we weren't supposed to get through tonight, we are going to come back next week and have a crack and see what happens," he said.
