SAME time. Same location. Same rival.

Different prize (very different prize of four premiership points rather than an AFL grand final berth). Different teams. Different result?

No two games are ever the same. Only once in Port Adelaide's AFL story since 1997 have back-to-back games with the same opponent at the same venue delivered the same result - draws against Brisbane at the Gabba in 1997 and 1998.

So it is highly unlikely that Adelaide Oval on Friday night will become a repeat of the 2021 Friday night preliminary final between Port Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs.

This time, there is no grand final booking on the line (well, not directly), but there are four AFL premiership points that both teams need if they are to stay in the wild chase for top-eight berths.

Port Adelaide certainly cannot afford - while at 2-5 and looking to build momentum after wins against West Coast and St Kilda in the past fortnight - for the storyline from this round 7 clash to prompt more reflection on the 71-point wipe-out of the preliminary final in mid-September last year.

"Right now," says Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley, "we're not talking about the same two sides" to merit deep comparisons with the 2021 preliminary final and this rematch in Friday Night Football.

Neither Port Adelaide nor the Western Bulldogs are top-four teams, as they were in round 23 in August last year when Port Adelaide locked a top-two finish with a two-point win (off another Robbie Gray clutch goal) against the Western Bulldogs in Friday Night Football at the Docklands in west Melbourne.

Much changed less than a month later with a preliminary final that failed to deliver to the highly anticipated pre-game script. Much more has changed seven months on with Port Adelaide ranked 13th (2-5) and with the Western Bulldogs at 10th (3-4).

If Port Adelaide carries scars from the preliminary final, what do the Western Bulldogs need to heal from a 74-point loss to Melbourne in the AFL grand final that followed?

More relevant are the questions of the moment with Port Adelaide building a new midfield, the Western Bulldogs challenged to find consistency after creating a win-loss sequence since round 3 (after dropping the opening two games of the home-and-away series) and both teams trying to square the ledger on their win-loss counters.

DIFFERENT TEAMS

HOW do the line-ups differ from the preliminary final? There is significant change to both teams with Port Adelaide deprived experienced ruck talent and the Western Bulldogs without captain Marcus Bontempelli.

PORT ADELAIDE - IN (5): Tom Clurey, Mitch Georgiades, Trent Dumont, Jeremy Finlayson, Sam Hayes.

OUT (6): Miles Bergman (ill), Charlie Dixon (ankle), Orazio Fantasia (knee), Peter Ladhams (Sydney), Scott Lycett (shoulder), Trent McKenzie (knee).

WESTERN BULLDOGS - IN (6): Buku Khamis, Robbie McComb, Lachlan McNeil, Tim O'Brien, Ed Richards, Cody Weightman.  

OUT (6): Marcus Bontempelli (managed), Mitch Hannan (concussion), Lachie Hunter (rest), Jason Johannisen (calf), Josh Schache, Easton Wood (retired).  

How different do the teams play seven months later?

Port Adelaide is working Connor Rozee and Zak Butters with more minutes in the midfield where Sam Hayes will lead the ruck in his fourth AFL match.

Port Adelaide is aiming to a new-look attack without All-Australian key forward Charlie Dixon with delivery to Todd Marshall and Jeremy Finlayson needing a different theme to the long kicks to Dixon, a master of the contested mark.

Port Adelaide certainly has tightened in defence since the return of All-Australian defender Aliir Aliir - and Tom Clurey - from ankle and knee surgeries respectively. The notable gain from having these two tall defenders off the injury list is the forceful play of fellow defender Ryan Burton, both as a marking roadblock in the back half and a creative rebound player from the back half.

Champion Data notes the Western Bulldogs have marginally slipped in their scoring average (85 points this season compared with 90 last year) as the reliance on Aaron Naughton has deepened with the long-term injury to Josh Bruce (knee). This is despite Luke Beveridge's team having improved its league ranking with inside-50s (average 56 this season, up by four from 2021). The Western Bulldogs' most-telling league ranking slip is with contested possessions (10th this season, No. 5 last year).

The strength of the Western Bulldogs' game in recent weeks is in the rebound of defenders Caleb Daniel and Bailey Dale.

LESS SALT, MORE PEPPER

SEVEN months certainly can bring much change to a footballer.

Sam Powell-Pepper sat as Port Adelaide's medical substitute for the preliminary final (ultimately replacing Todd Marshall in the 22 during the match). This was enough to have West Coast ask if the contracted West Australian was available for a homecoming trade. It sparked a public ultimatum from Port Adelaide for the uncompromising midfielder-forward to shape up or ship out of Alberton.

Since the preliminary final, Powell-Pepper has turned 24, become a father and developed as a game-bursting, goalkicking forward more so than a midfielder. And when he does return to the engine room, it is as a back-up ruckman when Hayes needs a break.

"We would not be uncomfortable for Sam (to ruck again)," says Hinkley of the 187cm Powell-Pepper who has rucked in the past three games for a career tally of two hit-outs while presenting as a bullocking barrier at ruck contests.

Powell-Pepper plays his 100th AFL game in this preliminary final re-match. He is the poster boy of change.

RED TIME

NO-ONE will forget how the 2021 preliminary final began. The Western Bulldogs led by 32 points (5.2 to 0.0) after 17 minutes and it was not until time-on - "red time" - that Port Adelaide had a score with a goal from Ollie Wines.

The false starts have continued, as noted again last week by giving St Kilda a 14-point and 20-minute start in the tropics at Cazalys Stadium in Cairns.

"We have not had our first quarters anywhere near the level we'd like them to be," Hinkley says. "We are trying to turn them around as quickly as we possibly can. We are not reluctant to change stuff or look at how we can improve.

"And that is not because it is the Western Bulldogs this week. We need to be better in first quarters."

Where Port Adelaide is good - top-eight good - is in finishing quarters. When the clock hits the red zone for time-on, Port Adelaide has in seven games this season outscored its rivals 208-177 for a +31 differential. The Western Bulldogs do well in red time as well, outscoring their opponents 203-158 (+45) this season.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

From Sam Powell-Pepper with a theme that he hopes is shared by all his team-mates after this preliminary final rematch:

"A year has gone now and I am in such a better place."

BIRD SEED

(the little stuff that counts most)

Where: Adelaide Oval

When: Friday, May 6, 2022

Time: 7pm (SA time)

Last time: Port Adelaide 6.9 (45) l to Western Bulldogs 17.14 (116) at Adelaide Oval, preliminary final, September 11 last year

Overall: Port Adelaide 18, Western Bulldogs 16

Past five games (most recent first): L W L W L

Scoring average: Port Adelaide 93, Western Bulldogs 94

Tightest margin - Port Adelaide by two points (66-64) at the Docklands, round 23, August 20 2021; Western Bulldogs by three points (100-97) at Adelaide Oval, round 12, June 11, 2016.

Biggest margin - Port Adelaide by 86 points (147-61) at Marrara Oval, Darwin round 20, August 14, 2004; Western Bulldogs by 93 points (137-44) at Marrara Oval, round 12, June 13, 2009.

By venues - Adelaide Oval (4-4), Football Park (6-3), Princes Park (1-1), Docklands (3-4), Eureka Stadium, Ballarat (2-0), Marrara Oval (2-4).

By States and Territories - South Australia (10-7), Victoria (6-5), Northern Territory (2-4).

SCARS? The therapists  - and nagging pundits - can retreat from Alberton (and quickly). Port Adelaide has proven it has no lingering torment from the Western Bulldogs and that disastrous AFL preliminary final at Adelaide Oval seven months ago.

Port Adelaide is now 3-5, on a momentum-building roll with three consecutive wins with this 17-point win against the 2021 AFL runner-up being the best of the hat-trick. And Ken Hinkley's squad should be now free at last of the seemingly never-ending questions about mental scars from a nightmare last September.

Teams with baggage do not play composed and assertive football.

MG Fans MVP: Who caught your eye against the Bulldogs?

Energetic (even after being engaged in a demanding one-point game in the northern tropics six days earlier). Disciplined (regardless of some bizarre umpiring calls that will be hard to explain on review). Eager for the contest (even if the trusty barometer of contested possession favoured the Western Bulldogs 130-126). In control and confident in moving the ball ... rather than increasingly controlled by the opposition denying Port Adelaide the ball.

Such qualities are not shown by a team burdened by a result that supposedly leaves mental scars.

The dialogue of Port Adelaide - and its part in this year's wild ride to the final eight berths to AFL finals - will take a very different tone this week, more so if All-Australian key forward Charlie Dixon makes it through his SANFL comeback match at Alberton on Saturday.

Not that it will be easy to move the magnets on the whiteboard to return Dixon to the goalfront when Greater Western Sydney recruit Jeremy Finlayson and fellow go-to forward Todd Marshall are growing in their understanding as a tandem. They finished with five combined goals - three from Finlayson who could have had five again.

The start was always going to be telling for so many reasons and to many of those wanting to see just how "damaged" Port Adelaide would be in seeing its preliminary final conquerors face-to-face for the first time since September 11 last year.

Port Adelaide again, as it did against St Kilda, gave up a 14-point lead and needed Robbie Gray to open the scoring with a set-shot goal in the 16th minute. The eight-point gap at this moment was a stark contrast to the 32-point deficit at the same time in the preliminary final.

And this time it was Port Adelaide with the quickfire succession of unanswered goals - four of them: Gray, Steven Motlop (from the south-east boundary pocket), Finlayson from the other pocket and milestone man Sam Powell-Pepper from the goalsquare on four consecutive set shots that had Port Adelaide leading by 10 points early into time-on.

It was two points in Port Adelaide's favour at quarter-time (vastly different to the 37-point deficit from the preliminary final). Five goals with one non-scoring miss by Finlayson (rather than 1.1 at quarter-time) from nine inside-50 entries made the Adelaide Oval scoreboard look better for Port Adelaide fans than at any time during the preliminary final. Some time has passed since Port Adelaide was so accurate and so efficient inside the 50-metre forward arc.

The need for new, varied methods of delivery to a new-look attack - without the contested marking of All-Australian Dixon - was answered. Even so, Marshall made an impression with his stronger marking in packs. He finished with eight marks - four contested, a career-best figure.

It was not so powerful on the scoreboard during the second term when Port Adelaide controlled the pace of the game, but was not fully rewarded for its patient approach to the goalfront. The 11 inside-50s at the northern end during the second term generated 2.4 that includes Motlop hitting a goalpost at the northern end and masks Willem Drew putting a set shot from a free kick on the north-west boundary pocket out-of-bounds on the full.

Those goalposts at the northern end were certainly a nuisance during the last term when each of Finlayson, Motlop and Wines rattled the white aluminium poles while Port Adelaide was looking for that lucky (but elusive) 13th goal that would scar the Western Bulldogs. The 0.6 in the last term denied Port Adelaide a more forceful response to those wanting to roll in the pyscho-analysts at Alberton.

The scoreboard repeatedly read so much better than seven months ago.

It was a four-point lead Port Adelaide held at half-time (rather than the 58-point shortfall to the Bulldogs halfway through the preliminary final); 24 points (rather than 58) at three quarter-time ... and 17 points at the end (delivering four valuable premiership points more so than any revenge for those 71 points in last year's painful finish to an unfulfilled season). Remarkably, the forward with the dedicated approach to his goalkicking - 20-year-old Mitch Georgiades - is struggling with his conversion, both at set shots and on the run. He finished with 0.4.

It was different at the start.

Port Adelaide's opening centre-bounce rotation continued with the new look offered with four-game ruckman Sam Hayes and the pairing of 2018 draftees Connor Rozee and Zak Butters with Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines. Willem Drew, whose name featured in so much of the post-game debate from the preliminary final on Port Adelaide's midfield match-ups, again started on the bench - and entered the game from the third centre bounce in a rotation that included former captain Travis Boak.

The Western Bulldogs won the first four centre clearances - and this was as the only red flag seen in this critical battleground that defined last year's preliminary final. The Bulldogs led centre clearances 7-2 at quarter-time after finding greater resistance from the harder bodies of Wines, Boak and Drew and at half-time was 9-5 while Hayes commanded the hit-outs, particularly with his strong positioning and deft touch at centre bounces. That four-clearance lead from the start of the game was still the difference at three quarter-time when the count was 12-8 and at the end of the game with 13-9, signalling Port Adelaide was on even terms with the much-admired opposition engine room led by Jack Macrae in the absence of Marcus Bontempelli.  

Hayes finished with 37 hit-outs, 12 at the centre circle while Port Adelaide won the ruck counter 40-21.

Powell-Pepper, in his 100th game, again worked as a makeshift ruckman and a dangerous goalscoring option around tall forwards - both in space and in marking packs. He finished with two goals - and one hit-outs.

The match marked two milestones with Xavier Duursma gaining a recall - for his 50th AFL game - on Friday morning when fellow wingman Kane Farrell had to withdrew by COVID protocols. Lachie Jones became the medical substitute.

Port Adelaide's need for the substitute was triggered by defender Riley Bonner landing awkwardly on his right ankle - and hobbling off the field while assisted by trainers - during the third term.

PORT ADELAIDE v WESTERN BULLDOGS

PORT ADELAIDE     5.0   7.4   12.8  12.14 (86)

W BULLDOGS          4.4    6.6    8.8.  10.9  (69)

BEST - Port Adelaide: Boak, Finlayson, Wines, Rozee, Hayes, Byrne-Jones.

GOALS - Port Adelaide: Finlayson 3, Gray, Marshall, Powell-Pepper 2, Boak, Dumont, Motlop.

INJURY - Kane Farrell (COVID protocols, removed from selected 22 and replaced by Xavier Duursma); Riley Bonner (right ankle, substituted at the end of the third term).

MEDICAL SUBSTITUTE: Lachie Jones (activated for last quarter).

CROWD: 29,290 at Adelaide Oval.

NEXT: v North Melbourne at Hobart on Saturday.