PATIENCE is hard to find in AFL circles, more so while the league plays shortened games in a truncated season (despite both seeming to take longer than usual to unfold).
On Saturday night - in Port Adelaide's return to Adelaide Oval after a six-week absence that has tested everyone's tolerance - two clubs with impatient supporter bases will collide in a top-eight shaping match.
Two teams that put speed on the game and their ball movement to challenge (or trip into) defensive strategies will clash head-on with true momentum.
And there will be reason to admire two senior coaches who have shown incredible patience in a game that judges and evicts experience with far too much haste.
Ken Hinkley (Port Adelaide) and Brett Ratten (St Kilda) have a combined coaching tally of 299 AFL games across 14 continuous league seasons since 2007. But they have never worked in direct opposition from the hot seats in the coach's boxes (or bench, in Ratten's case).
Ratten's six-season reign at his home club of Carlton ended - unjustly in many eyes - at the end of 2012 when Hinkley arrived at Alberton as the "right man standing" for Port Adelaide.
Hinkley had served the seemingly longest apprenticeship, first in regional football, then alongside Malcolm Blight in that folly at St Kilda in 2001 followed by assistant coaching stints at Geelong and Gold Coast while always being linked to senior AFL jobs and falling one short during the search at Geelong, Richmond and St Kilda.
Ratten's return to senior coaching - after family tragedy in 2015 and working alongside Alastair Clarkson for the latter two flags during Hawthorn's triple-premiership run from 2013-2015 - is one of Australian football's true feel-good stories. Those who took exception to Ratten - still the last coach to take Carlton to repetitive top-eight finals series (2011, after earlier qualifications in 2009 and 2010) - being fired at the end of 2012 would take delight in his comeback (even if it included a win against his old mob in round 5).
Two men who had their patience tested to get a first and second chance in AFL coaching finally cross paths after 299 games ....
In this time, Hinkley has coached against 39 senior rivals (the most, 10 times against Ross Lyon). Ratten has worked against 40 (and also most often against the now media-placed Lyon, nine games).
As players - Hinkley with his 132 at Fitzroy and Geelong from 1987-1995 and Ratten with his 255 at Carlton from 1990-2003 - crossed paths on a football field in seven AFL games, the last time in the 1995 grand final that gave Ratten his lone premiership medal.
It has taken a long time - 25 years - for Hinkley and Ratten to face each other again as rivals chasing the same prize, this time four critical premiership points at Adelaide Oval.
ROUND 8
Port Adelaide v St Kilda
Port Adelaide has an eight-game winning streak running against St Kilda - one short of the nine won against the Victorian club from 2001-2006 when the Saints also called Tasmania home.
Five of the eight wins in the current streak come from consecutive matches against St Kilda at Adelaide Oval from 2014-2018. Funny how that AFL fixture works.
Before St Kilda coach Brett Ratten could find relief from the bizarre game at Adelaide Oval on Monday night - from which the AFL has apologised for the umpiring blunders - he was noting: "We have a challenge."
But Ratten's squad has no need to pack passports, avoid food poisoning in Melbourne or adjust to a ground never before seen by his players - as was the case last season when St Kilda stumbled on its first trip to Shanghai, China.
This much pushed-around fixture has gone from Jiangwan Stadium to Marvel Stadium (via speculation of being played in north Queensland) to finish up at Adelaide Oval - as St Kilda's second game at the cricket ground in six days ... and Port Adelaide's second in six weeks.
There are tantalising duels in a sport no longer known for one-on-one match-ups across all six field lines. St Kilda midfielder Jack Steele has polled votes from Ratten and his direct rival coach in six of seven games this season (with half of his disposals earned in contested action).
St Kilda's defence once again has a Port Adelaide recruit giving it stability - this time, Dougal Howard (who still likes to venture forward for a goal-scoring opportunity).
St Kilda's ruck battery includes a competitor well known at Alberton, 2017 John Cahill Medallist Patrick Ryder.
And there is the fast-developing Max King, the No.4 pick in the 2018 AFL national draft, standing at 202cm in the St Kilda attack.
Ratten can see a challenge in facing top-ranked Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval - but he also can believe his team will be a challenging opponent, particularly if St Kilda continues to improve the connection between its fast-breaking midfielders and the multi-dimensional attack that mixes King's tall throne with the court jesters Dan Butler and Dean Kent at his feet.
"We need to play with gears," said St Kilda defender Callum Wilkie of his team's challenge to not always play into opposition hands with fast-track rebound from defence (as unfolded in the collapse to Fremantle in round 6).
There is a balance, as Ratten made clear by distancing his team from static football by saying: "If you stop, you surrender."
Despite a poor record at Adelaide Oval, St Kilda - benefitting from the Oval experiences assistant coach Brendon Lade gathered in the Port Adelaide coaching hub three years ago - did prove on Monday night in beating Adelaide that it knows how to set up defensive blocks at a venue that rewards quick-fire rebound from defence.
Recent Port Adelaide-St Kilda matches have not been intense. Take away the two-point game in 2017 - when Ryder gave Robbie Gray the perfect tap before he carved his way through a lax St Kilda stoppage set-up to kick the winning goal at the northern end of Adelaide Oval - and the margins since 2014 have been by 70, 36, 33, 66 and 70 points. All have been in Port Adelaide's favour.
This time it should be more challenging - regardless of the shorter quarters.
For the record, Port Adelaide's longest winning streak against an AFL rival is - 11: Against Gold Coast since 2012.
NEW MATHS
WHERE is a mathematician when you need one?
So, in a season of 16-minute quarters and 17 "home-and-away" games, how does 6-1 translate?
Last season, with 22 qualifying games to the top-eight finals, there was (just like today) only one team with a 6-1 win-loss record after round 7. That was Geelong (an eventual preliminary finalist).
At the end of round 18, when not all 18 clubs had played 17 matches but not all their 17 league rivals once, the cut-off to eighth spot was nine wins.
In theory, Port Adelaide is close - within three-four wins from 10 games - to qualifying for AFL finals for the first time since that dramatic finish in 2017 (with double extra-time and a goal after the siren at Adelaide Oval in the elimination final against West Coast).
Last time Port Adelaide held a 6-1 record was in 2014, that season of black-and-white bars against Richmond in the first AFL elimination final at Adelaide Oval.
As for maths, the 62 matches to the end of round 7 have produced a scoring average of 62 points from a 53.34 per cent accuracy count - comparing favourably (with a 20 per cent reduction in game time) with 80 points last season on 52.06 per cent accuracy.
SELECTION TABLE
Port Adelaide
Three for three, like for like. And two of the changes forced by injury to defender Ryan Burton and midfielder-forward Steven Motlop late in the epic win against Carlton.
Half-back Riley Bonner is recalled to cover Burton's loss. Former vice-captain Brad Ebert returns from a one-game suspension to replace Motlop.
The unforced change has first-year high-flying forward Mitch Georgiades resume - after making his AFL debut against Gold Coast in round 1 and being held up by injury during the COVID shutdown - at the expense of veteran Justin Westhoff.
Second-year midfielder-forward Connor Rozee is to play despite a light training week to ease his sore heel, an injury suffered early against Carlton on Sunday.
Ruckman Scott Lycett remains on the injury list with a knee injury, leaving young ruckman Peter Ladhams to show Patrick Ryder how much the apprentice learned from the master when they were team-mates at Alberton last year.
In: Bonner, Ebert, Georgiades
Out: Burton (quad), Motlop (ankle), Westhoff
St Kilda
Three changes also for St Kilda with Ratten calling up wingman-forward Jack Sinclair and speedy forward Matty Parker for the first time this season. He also has recalled the versatile Nicholas Hind to give St Kilda even more speed to throw at Port Adelaide's defence.
St Kilda was forced to sideline switch-hitting forward Josh Battle and opted to stand down novice Ryan Byrnes and small forward Jack Lonie.
Battle is the forced change - from friendly fire from ruckman Patrick Ryder. He has a minor fracture, laceration and significant brushing to his left cheek ... and concussion.
In: Hind, Parker, Sinclair
Out: Battle (head knock), Byrnes, Lonie
BIRD SEED
(the little stuff that counts most)
Where: Adelaide Oval
When: Saturday, July 25
Time: 7.10pm (SA time)
Last time: Port Adelaide 22.7 (139) d St Kilda 9.15 (69) at Jiangwan Stadium, Shanghai, China in round 11, June 2 last year
Overall: Port Adelaide 20, St Kilda 10
Past five games (most recent first): W W W W W
Scoring average: Port Adelaide 89, St Kilda 82
Tightest margin - Port Adelaide by two points (63-61) at Adelaide Oval, round 19, July 29, 2017; St Kilda by four points (64-60) at York Park, Launceston, round 16, July 23, 2006.
Biggest margin - Port Adelaide by 83 points (139-56) at the Docklands, Melbourne, round 3, April 14, 2002; St Kilda by 94 points (151-57) at the Docklands, Melbourne, round 19, August 8, 2010.
By venues - Adelaide Oval (Port Adelaide 5-0); Football Park (8-3); Docklands (3-3); Waverley Park (0-3); York Park (3-1); Jiangwan Stadium (1-0).
By States - South Australia (13-3); Victoria (3-6); Tasmania (3-1); China (1-0).
FORM LINES
Port Adelaide
W W L W W W W
Port Adelaide's second month of this bizarre season has been true to a final series - top-of the table clash with Brisbane at the Gabba and follow-up top-eight clashes with Greater Western Sydney (away in Queensland), Carlton (again in Queensland) and now sixth-ranked St Kilda in a long-awaited return to Adelaide Oval.
In the past three weeks - with a 2-1 record - Port Adelaide has:
WON six of 12 quarters (with the third against Carlton squared),
SCORED 24.31,
COVERED injuries and suspensions to Brad Ebert, Xavier Duursma, Ryan Burton, Scott Lycett and Cam Sutcliffe.
HELD top spot.
St Kilda
W L W W L W L
St Kilda finished round 8 with its first AFL win at Adelaide Oval - and sixth position with a 4-3 win-loss record built on strong form at their Docklands home in Melbourne.
St Kilda was 3-1 under the roof with the loss by just two points to North Melbourne after a poor first half.
There are extremes in St Kilda's performances within games this season, as highlighted by that collapse to Fremantle after starting with 7.2 and a six-goal head start at Carrara in round 6.
St Kilda has generally scored well - more than 10 goals in all but two matches. It also has conceded an average 10 goals a game this season.
The wins have been against the Western Bulldogs (39 points), Richmond (26 points), Carlton (18 points) and Adelaide (23 points). The losses have been to North Melbourne (two points) and Fremantle (six points) - two teams at the lower end of the table.
BLESSED SAINTS
SOME of Port Adelaide's favourites have found their way to St Kilda recently.
St Kilda's coaching staff is blessed with the considerable knowledge of Port Adelaide premiership ruckman-forward Brendon Lade. A 234-game hero at Alberton, Lade has built his coaching apprenticeship since 2010 at Richmond (2010-2016), Port Adelaide (2017-2018) and since last year at St Kilda.
In the most recent AFL trade period, Port Adelaide sent to St Kilda experienced ruckman Patrick Ryder. The West Australian played 73 AFL games with Port Adelaide after leaving Essendon at the end of 2014. Robbie Gray still will be calling for his special taps.
More contentious during the trade period in October was the release of key defender Dougal Howard after 45 AFL matches in four seasons at Alberton.
Of course, the most memorable move from St Kilda (in a return home to Port Adelaide) was full back Darryl Wakelin, a member of the 2004 AFL premiership side. Wakelin had played 24 SANFL games - and earned the Jack Oatey Medal as best-afield in the 1994 SANFL grand final - before moving to St Kilda to join his twin brother Shane. Wakelin played 115 AFL matches with St Kilda before his timely return to Port Adelaide in 2001 while Shane went to Collingwood. His 146 AFL games in teal took his career tally with Port Adelaide to 170 senior games.
QUOTE OF THE PRE-GAME
Survival of the fittest.
Port Adelaide midfielder and former captain Travis Boak capturing a theme on the release of the quick-fire fixture from rounds 9-12.
TIP
Port Adelaide by 29 points
