PORT ADELAIDE assistant coach Brendon Lade has admitted he can’t explain his side’s poor performance against Fremantle on Sunday but says it will take learnings from it.

The Power went into the game at Perth’s Optus Stadium as favourites and were expected to add to its five-game winning streak.

After dominating the first quarter but not doing enough damage on the scoreboard, the Port Adelaide side was held scoreless in the second term and made numerous skill errors which limited its chances of winning the game against a dogged Dockers outfit.

The Power had more disposals, clearances and contested possessions but managed just seven goals in its worst showing of the season.

“We can’t really explain it,” Lade told Adelaide radio station FIVEaa.

“We prepared really well, we knew what Fremantle were going to try and do and we just didn’t execute.

“Our skills were well below par, our inside 50s and our conversion once in there weren’t good enough but again our team defence held up and we restricted a team to under 70 points – it was just that the other things weren’t good enough.”

Port was down on two rotations because of injuries to Paddy Ryder and Robbie Gray either side of half time but Lade said that was no excuse for the side’s poor execution.

“We’ll take some learnings out of it, we know there are some areas we have to get better and we’ll keep working on it,” he said.

“We didn’t keep competing the way we would have liked.

“As coaches we try and change a few things to try and make things happen better but everything we tried didn’t seem to work on the day.

“We put Motlop to half back, we put Ebert to the goal square, we tried everything to try and get us going and it just didn’t work in the end.”

Gray will have to pass concussion protocol in order to take his place in the side to face Greater Western Sydney on Sunday afternoon, while Ryder is expected to be sidelined for a period of time with a hip flexor injury.

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