EVERYONE loves Stuart Dew. He holds a significant spot in Port Adelaide's story on rising from the SANFL to the AFL - inaugural squad member, AFL premiership winner in 2004, club leading goalkicker in 2002 ... true team player.

Everyone wants Stuart Dew to succeed in his first stint as an AFL senior coach, now into its fifth year at Gold Coast. He has much admiration for building credibility in an AFL project in south-east Queensland, in the so-called Bermuda Triangle for sporting franchises.

Everyone hopes Stuart Dew will get - as Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley often says - all he deserves for his dedication and commitment to a demanding job in a project that needs to succeed for Australian football's national agenda.  

But not this weekend.

For the first time since Gold Coast entered the AFL in 2011, a Port Adelaide-Gold Coast game can be billed as a play-off to September.

Gold Coast is 11th with a 7-6 win-loss record. Port Adelaide is 12th at 6-7. It is another of those classic "eight-point games". Gold Coast needs to win to avert the agenda focusing on previous promising campaigns that have fallen apart during the second half of the season.

"We have a plan now," says Gold Coast defender Jy Farrar. "The first thing was accepting that has happened in the past couple of years. Now, we are better - we have worked to a better program built by our high-performance managers. We are fitter whereas we would "gas out' midway through a season before. The Adelaide game last week (won by Gold Coast by 43 points with a late scoring surge) showed we did not stop running.

"We have a plan - and we are going to stick to it and hopefully finish the season strongly."

Port Adelaide must win to finally get its win-loss count even at 7-7 with a 7-2 record after a 0-5 start. The tightrope walk to September has Port Adelaide on edge. And it knows exactly how good Gold Coast can be, seeing first hand in the pre-season the growth Dew has nurtured with a team finding consistency - and strength with its work around stoppages.

"They are 5-1 in their past six games. Defensively they have been really good. Their contest stuff - as we found out in the pre-season - is at an improved level," says Hinkley. "They are a big final-eight contender."

It's a big game - something that has not been said too often about Port Adelaide-Gold Coast matches.

MORE THAN JUST HIT-OUTS

JARROD WITTS is 209-centimetres tall and weighs 111 kilograms. The Gold Coast co-captain is one of the AFL's most-dominant ruckmen, perhaps the All-Australian ruckman of AFL Season 2022.

Jeremy Finlayson is 197-centimetres tall and tips the scales at 94 kilograms - and is Port Adelaide's chosen lead ruckman for this game in the absence of the experienced Scott Lycett and mid-season rookie draftee Brynn Teakle (shoulder injuries to both) and the non-selection of first-year ruckman Sam Hayes.

But Finlayson has the earthy attitude that when the ball is in the air, he will play tall - and when it is on the ground, he will play small. His follow-up work has been critical to ensuring whatever Port Adelaide loses in the hit-out count is not directly translated to the clearance ledger.

This was the theme that had Finlayson play a significant part in ensuring Port Adelaide won the clearances after losing the hit-outs to the Richmond ruck battery led by Toby Nankervis at the MCG a fortnight ago.

"Our focus is on clearances - and metres gained from clearances," says Port Adelaide forwards coach Nathan Bassett. "And how our ruckmen follow-up the ruck contest."

The long-running debate on how the raw count of hit-outs can be overstated today brings onto the agenda the career-best 69 hit-outs Witts won in round 23, 2019. Gold Coast lost the match by 72 points while the Greater Western Sydney midfield kept the gap on the clearance ledger at four (47-43).

"We play the percentages and don't expect the ball will be put in our position (when we play to makeshift rucks). I look back on my career and know we have had good ruckmen. But it has not been our 'one wood' - winning hit-outs or getting hit-outs to advantage.

"I think back to the days of Jackson Trengove. We had a lot of ruckmen injured and relied on our midfielders beating the opposition midfielders in the battle to the ball. It is not so much of a challenge for us (to play with under-size ruckmen); we have always thrived in that environment. Against Gold Coast with Witts, we - as midfielders - will have to be on our toes and not expect as many hits."

Port Adelaide vice-captain and Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines

MORE THAN KICKING GOALS

PORT ADELAIDE is shuffling its line-up to cover the loss of defenders Tom Clurey and deputy vice-captain Darcy Byrne-Jones by the COVID protocols.

Dan Houston is expected to move from the midfield to half-back.

Xavier Duursma comes off the medical substitute's seat to work in the midfield.

And Steven Motlop returns from the SANFL to play as a half-forward ... and with much misunderstanding of how his role is much more than scoring or setting up score assists. He is there just as much to stop the scoreboard ticking over.

"He gets up the ground and he gets in front of the ball," explained Port Adelaide forwards coach Nathan Bassett. "The opposition has to get past him. He helps the team defend. His measurements as a high forward - across the competition - are quite reasonable."

And often the work of the new AFL high forward - a role taken on by Motlop, Sam Powell-Pepper, Lachie Jones and now Mitch Georgiades at Port Adelaide - is not appreciated by the pundits.

"Look at Alex Neal-Bullen at Melbourne," says Bassett. "He has kicked two goals this year. Statistically, he is the worst for shots at goal in the whole competition. But he plays his role for his team. He gets up the ground. He helps them defend. He links up in chains - and he then puts some pressure on.

"You can judge the strength of a team by its high forwards. We were happy with Lachie Jones in that role last week. He had only five possessions, but the pressure that he brought was excellent."

THE PAST

OF the 13 games played for AFL premiership points, it is fair to say only two carry lasting memories - the first and the eighth.

The first - at Football Park on April 23, 2011 - is memorable for Gold Coast as its first win for premiership points ... and the club song being sung for the first time in victory with the aid of cue cards. "We are the suns of the Gold Coast sky ..." Gold Coast, after facing a 28-point deficit leading into the final term, won by three points with Port Adelaide forward Justin Westhoff missing a shot after the siren.

The eighth - at Jiangwan Stadium, Shanghai, China - on May 14, 2017 marked the first time an AFL match for premiership points was played outside Australia or New Zealand. Port Adelaide won by 72 points.

THE PRESENT

PORT ADELAIDE has a 12-game winning streak in AFL home-and-away matches against Gold Coast. The past five matches have been convincingly won by Port Adelaide - by 115 points at Adelaide Oval in 2017, 40, 38, 47 and by 50 points at the last outing at Carrrara this time last year.

Today, Gold Coast seems at its best since round 21, 2014 to challenge Port Adelaide. In the lead-up to that clash at Carrara, Port Adelaide was fifth, Gold Coast was equal seventh but officially ranked 10th by an inferior percentage to Adelaide, Essendon and Collingwood .... and the game was decided by nine points after Gold Coast jumped Port Adelaide at the start.

The match is memorable for Port Adelaide ruckman Matthew Lobbe having 56 hit-outs - and earning the three Brownlow Medal votes. Despite a 64-37 advantage in the hit-outs, the clearances were a tighter battle with Port Adelaide have just a plus-two differential (51-49).

"Gold Coast play tough footy. They are very good on the spread - their midfielders are very quick in moving the ball from inside the contest to outside.

"They play very similar to Sydney - not surprising considering their coach (Stuart Dew) is a former Sydney assistant coach. They defend one-on-one - and are very physical. They have improved how they come off (their men) to help in defence. And they surge as much as anyone ... but not quite as much as Sydney."

Port Adelaide forwards coach Nathan Bassett on opposition watch

THE FUTURE

IT is all about the short-term future - the race to September's top-eight finals.

Port Adelaide probably needs to win at least six (perhaps seven) of its remaining nine home-and-away matches to qualify for its third consecutive finals series - and sixth time in the past decade.

Gold Coast is looking for its first AFL finals appearance since entering the national competition in 2011. At 7-6, 11th-ranked Gold Coast is on track to pass its 2014 high mark of ranking 12th with a 10-12 win-loss count.

And in eight visits to Adelaide Oval - twice against Port Adelaide - Gold Coast has never won at the city ground. It also has never cracked the watershed 100-point barrier at Adelaide Oval.

BY THE NUMBERS

SYDNEY coach John Longmire admired the pressure the Port Adelaide players applied in last weekend's clash at Adelaide Oval. It is not a one-off theme in the Port Adelaide game.

"Their pressure was elite, particularly their tackle pressure inside forward 50," Longmire said after the 23-point loss. "To their credit, they put enormous pressure on us and we turned the ball over coming out of our back half.

"That's the sort of pressure you get in big games and from Port Adelaide."

Port Adelaide ranks No. 2 by the AFL statisticians’ "pressure factor".

Port Adelaide ranks No. 4 for conceding marks inside-50 - just 9.1 a match.

And Port Adelaide has out-tackled its opponents by an average count of 5.9 a game this season - No. 2 in the league rankings.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

BIRD SEED

(the little stuff that counts most)

Where: Adelaide Oval

When: Sunday, June 26, 2022

Time: 3.40pm (SA time)

Last time: Port Adelaide 12.9 (81) d Gold Coast 4.7 (31) at Metricon Stadium, Gold Coast, round 14, June 19, 2021

Overall: Port Adelaide 12, Gold Coast 1

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

Scoring average: Port Adelaide 96, Gold Coast 55

Tightest winning margin - Port Adelaide by nine points (56-47) at Gold Coast in round 21, August 16, 2014; Gold Coast by three points (104-101) at Football Park, round 5, April 23, 2011.

Biggest winning margin - Port Adelaide by 115 points (135-20) at Adelaide Oval, round 23, August 26, 2017; Gold Coast by three points (104-101) at Football Park, round 5, April 23, 2011.

By venues - Adelaide Oval (2-0), Football Park (1-1), Metricon Stadium (7-0), Jiangwan Stadium, Shanghai (2-0).

By States - South Australia (3-1), Queensland (7-0), China (2-0).

WHICH is the best team outside of the AFL top eight? Although it is a label of shallow merit, Port Adelaide is gaining credibility in that conversation about where it stands in the race to September.

Port Adelaide - with that resilience that has defined its fightback from a 0-5 start to the home-and-away series - is now level at 7-7 after a dramatic (and entertaining) two-point win against Gold Coast at Adelaide Oval on Sunday.

After losing four games by two goals or less this season, Port Adelaide has won a close one. It has this two-point win to put against the one-point victory against St Kilda at Cairns in round seven. The "never, ever give up" theme lives on.

Port Adelaide remains 12th - behind Richmond (8-6), St Kilda (8-6) and Gold Coast (7-7) - and two wins behind the eighth-ranked Western Bulldogs (8-6). But while there is spirit in the way Ken Hinkley's crew approaches this uphill battle to the top eight, there is hope.

The super round with four games pitting top-eight sides against each other actually delivered its best match with the 11th-placed Gold Coast and 12th-ranked Port Adelaide in the final match of the weekend. With 11 seconds to play - and with Port Adelaide grasping a hard-earned two-point lead - the last play was a boundary throw-in at the northern end in front of Gold Coast's goal.

How "ironic" that for all the pre-match talk of Port Adelaide facing a nightmare against Gold Coast giant ruckman Jarrod Witts, the Port Adelaide "makeshift" ruck battery stood up at that throw-in ... and Port Adelaide won the stoppage to clear the ball from the defensive 50.

Now the conversation on where Port Adelaide really sits in this race to September - with eight rounds to play - becomes more interesting. Who is the best outside the top eight today?

Since round 5, when Port Adelaide was 0-5 and Gold Coast and Richmond were 2-3, the three teams have across the past nine games delivered at -

PORT ADELAIDE: 7-2

RICHMOND: 6-3

GOLD COAST: 5-4.

Port Adelaide scored 13.15 (93) - well above it season-average (74) on a night it needed to match Gold Coast's opportunist goalscorers, in particular Izak Rankine and Ben Ainsworth.

Port Adelaide answered with eight goalscorers, including three from the midfield from the increasingly imposing Connor Rozee (two goals), Xavier Duursma (one) and Kane Farrell (one, with one denied by score review). This 13-goal scoreline includes key forward Charlie Dixon registering his 300th career goal (after 94 in 65 games at Gold Coast) at the start of the third term with a perfectly curved snap from deep in the north-west pocket.

Todd Marshall, again playing from the goalsquare, was the cool, perfect hand in attack. Four goals without a miss - and a presence in attack that redefines everything that has been thought and said to question his merit as an AFL player.

If this was round 15 game was recast a heavyweight boxing bout, the judges' cards would read best after half-time. This is when Port Adelaide and Gold Coast traded serious blows - and the lead changed twice and never blew out to more than 13 points (in Port Adelaide's favour).

Port Adelaide's opening against Sydney last week was manic - in-your-face pressure to the opposition. Against Gold Coast, the five-goal start was built on control of the ball and some neat connections between the lines.

Gold Coast was late to the first bounce - as noted with the Never Tear Us Apart anthem ending, the siren blasting ... and the umpires hurrying the Gold Coast forwards into their forward-50. No surprise then that Port Adelaide made the better start - and its second-best opening score of the season (5.4, seven points less than the 6.5 against North Melbourne at Hobart in round 9).

The team's fifth goal - and first for Marshall - in the 25th minute gave Port Adelaide a 26-point lead that was reduced to 18 on the quarter-time siren after some defensive lapses in time-on. These included Riley Bonner's kick-in to Trent McKenzie being intercepted by Mabior Chol and a free kick to Gold Coast journeyman Nick Holman on the siren when Port Adelaide was working down the clock. Both shots became behinds, sparing scoreboard pain to the personal embarrassment.

Gold Coast's ascendancy in time-on of the first term was actually a warning of a momentum swing. And it became a momentum wave at the start of the second term with Gold Coast opening with the first five scores - for 3.2 in 12 minutes - to turn the 18-point deficit into a two-point lead off finding space and using speed to attack the northern goal.

As Port Adelaide midfield coach Brett Montgomery noted at half-time - when Port Adelaide led by just five points - Gold Coast was "impressive" with its response during the second term when the contested-ball barometre remained marginally against Port Adelaide (minus four differential at each first-half break, 39-43 at quarter-time and 77-81 at half-time).

It took 17 minutes for Port Adelaide to score its first goal of the second term - and regain the lead - with Georgaides marking strongly ... and kicking soundly from 40 metres. The 1.4 in the term while conceding 3.5 was a fair reflection of the speed Gold Coast was putting into the game.

Port Adelaide defied Gold Coast during the enthralling third term with its trademark resilience - and impressive productivity from winning clearances, setting up inside-50s and making them count with five shots on goal and three goals after Ainsworth had given Gold Coast a one-point lead in the fifth minute.

And the last term ... it was brutal, it was Gold Coast living off speed and Port Adelaide patiently looking for control and the killer blow. First, Karl Amon missed from a set shot; then Mitch Georgiades did the same; and Travis Boak with the snap that gave Port Adelaide an eight-point lead with 3:38 to play.

The AFL's score review "ARC" was busy during the second term using the "snickometer" on both goal posts at the northern end to deny goals to Gold Coast off Chol's boot. But the call on Port Adelaide wingman Kane Farrell's booming left-foot kick during time-on is contentious for the call of being "touched on the line" when vision appeared to be using the back of the goalpost padding - rather than the goal-line - as the marker.

Port Adelaide's reshuffle of the magnets on the team board - as forced by injury and COVID protocols - kept balance and maintained the development of players in new roles.

Jeremy Finlayson again led the ruck (a week after handing the role to mid-season rookie draftee Brynn Teakle) - and again the Greater Western Sydney recruit proved he has much more to offer than novice ruckman Sam Hayes after the hit-out contest. His field play while serving as a "makeshift" ruckman cannot be underestimated - and is not suitably defined on reading the raw statistics of 13 disposals.

Even after standing up against Gold Coast's 209-centimetre giant Jarrod Witts in a battering series of centre-ruck contests, Finlayson even outreached Witts in the 14th minute of the last term and followed up his own hit-out to set up an inside-50 for Port Adelaide. Such spirit against the odds - and determination to play the ball at ground level after being tested in the air - is making Finlayson present the perfect response to the critics who have defined his 78-game AFL career as inconsistent.  

Witts did - as expected - win the majority of the hit-outs against Finlayson and Dixon. Witts had 41 of Gold Coast's 43 hit-outs. Finlayson had 12 of Port Adelaide's 21; Dixon, eight.

Port Adelaide was - as forecast and planned against the towering Witts - winning the centre clearances 9-4 at half-time, but losing 20-12 away from the centrebounce. This figure finished at 16-13 in Port Adelaide's favour at centre bounces and 43-42 with Port Adelaide holding the edge at all stoppages. Vice-captain Ollie Wines (seven clearances) and Rozee (six) led the resistence.

Duursma came off the medical substitute seat to join from the wing the midfield rotations denied Zak Butters (knee injury).

Dan Houston did move from the midfield to defence - and Lachie Jones stayed in attack as he shed the label of "half-back flanker".

Trent McKenzie returned to a key defensive role - in the absence of Tom Clurey - to work on the last line against Levi Casboult (and later Chol) while Aliir Aliir was higher in defence in a starting match-up against Chris Burgess.

The forced re-adjustments held up - giving greater belief in Port Adelaide's "squad mentality".

Sam Mayes, the late call up to the Port Adelaide squad after deputy vice-captain Darcy Bryne-Jones joined fellow defender Tom Clurey on the COVID list, was the medical substitute. He was not activated, despite some heavy hits taken by Port Adelaide players, in particular captain Tom Jonas.

Every match leaves much to appreciate - and digest, either with pleasure or frustration.

For the highlights reel - and the team review - is yet another Jonas moment of desperate defence when working against the odds. Scroll to the 19th minute of the first term when Gold Coast first-round draftee forward Ben Ainsworth is running to the open goal - and is dispossessed by the oncoming Jonas. And take note of the back heel from Houston to ensure the spill stayed with Jonas. The captain never, ever gives up.

And half-forward Sam Powell-Pepper not letting the ball spill from a marking contest to over the eastern boundary in the 19th minute of the third term when his keeping the ball alive allowed Georgiades and Rozee to worked a tandem run for Port Adelaide's ninth goal.

Plus the back-to-back tackles by Duursma (on Brandon Ellis) and Steven Motlop (on Matt Rowell) in time-on of the third term reaffirm how Port Adelaide has recently led the AFL for forward-half pressure.

For the Monday cooler talk at the office will be the play-on call - that bewildered Charlie Dixon - when Travis Boak was pushed in the back while kicking into Port Adelaide's forward 50-metre arc during the second term.

For the bigger picture, where will Port Adelaide rate in conversations about teams to make a late charge to September's top-eight finals?

And next is a team that is carrying the title of best non-finalist of 2021 to emerge as a top-four contender: Fremantle at Perth Stadium where Port Adelaide has not beaten its portside counterpart in two AFL home-and-away meetings since 2018.

PORT ADELAIDE v GOLD COAST

PORT ADELAIDE   5.4     6.8     12.11   13.15 (93)

GOLD COAST         2.4     5.9     10.10    13.13 (91)

BEST - Port Adelaide: Rozee, Marshall, Finlayson, Wines, Houston, Bonner, Aliir.

GOALS - Port Adelaide: Marshall 4, Georgaides, Rozee 2, Dixon, Duursma, Farrell, Finlayson, Jones.

INJURY - Nil.

MEDICAL SUBSTITUTE: Sam Mayes (not activated).

CROWD: 26,214 at Adelaide Oval.

NEXT: Fremantle on Sunday at Perth Stadium.