SHOWDOWNS keep delivering. The 51st derby adds to the game's extraordinary history with a kick after the siren sinking Port Adelaide by four points - and leaving Ken Hinkley's team still searching for its first win of the season.

Adelaide's latest recruit, former Sydney player Jordan Dawson, kicked the winning goal after the siren at Adelaide Oval's northern end after stepping up for the free kick awarded - on high contact from Port Adelaide forward Sam Mayes - to Lachlan Murphy.

Dawson not only sealed Adelaide's first victory of the season - and first derby triumph since May 2019 - but he also claimed the Showdown Medal that seemed destined to former Port Adelaide captain Travis Boak for his 28-touch game.

Dawson's kick from 40 metres will go into Showdown folklore. It also denied Port Adelaide key forward Todd Marshall the chance to be a hero after delivering a career-best five goals.

And it will sting Port Adelaide for again being wasteful at the goalfront as underlined by its 13.14 scoreline - while Adelaide made the most of fewer goalscoring chances with 15.6.

The first Friday night AFL derby in Adelaide certainly did live up to the reputation developed in the previous 50 Showdowns of a match that is played in the moment - and with a full understanding of the consequences of the result. Leads did not come with any comfort for Port Adelaide.

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Adelaide responded to Port Adelaide's 19-point lead at quarter-time to bring the match back to two points with the first three goals of the second term. Port Adelaide put it at 16 at half-time, had it at just 12 at time-on of the third term and an uneasy 13 at the last change, despite eight more scores than Adelaide (including 2.5 in the third quarter).

Even after Marshall made it 19 points - with his fifth goal - to open the last term, Adelaide brought it back to 12. Showdowns do test the nerves ... right to time-on of the last term when Trent McKenzie's backwards mark against oncoming traffic at the top of the Adelaide goal square ensured Port Adelaide stayed 13 points in front (by a 1.7 advantage).

And it was just those seven behinds that separated the rivals with 4.43 to play when Adelaide tall forward Elliott Himmelberg made it a seven-point game - and then with his fourth goal it was one point with 3:40 to play.

The storyline of Port Adelaide's missed opportunities during the second half - when it scored 4.7 - was most painful on the last chance to keep the Showdown trophy for the 27th time. Boak, with a free kick and 50-metre penalty, missed from 30 metres. A two-point lead did not hold with 1:36 to play.

Not even McKenzie's courageous play - with another backwards mark in the last minute inside Adelaide's forward-50 - saved the game.

Port Adelaide's re-configured attack - with small and mid-size forwards such as Mayes serving as targets at the goalfront - did deliver more ... but not enough.

The pairing of Mitch Georgiades and Marshall - at the expense of Greater Western Sydney recruit Jeremy Finlayson - was not short of criticism, particularly the backing of Marshall after he managed just four possessions in each of the first two games this season.

Marshall's response at the goalfront with five goals - and his work in ruck to support lead ruckman Scott Lycett in his demanding duel with Reilly O'Brien - and Georgiades' two goals do stand as a fair response to all the pre-game debate.  

Marshall's previous best - four goals against Fremantle - dates to the season-opener of 2018.

Hinkley wanted an attack in which players took advantage of their "creative" licence. His forwards created spot fires to put Adelaide's defence in a state of anxiety.

First it was Mayes, playing his first AFL game since the close of the home-and-away season last year. He made all the experience of his previous 118 senior matches at Brisbane and Port Adelaide by often energetically putting himself in the right spots at the right time. And there will be much debate about the mark overturned against him - for holding Adelaide rival Brodie Smith - in the second term.

No-one was taking from Mayes the pack mark he grabbed like a vice at the start of the third term at the northern end.

Then there was Sam Powell-Pepper, who continued with the havoc that allowed him to score three goals last week. But ultimately there was not enough to extend the Showdown winning streak to five.

On a night when Port Adelaide had to deliver a response and make major corrections, the achievements were:

FIRST inside-50 entry finished in a goal, from Steven Motlop.

FIRST act of resistance to an Adelaide kick-in had the ball turned over for a boundary throw-in on the 50-metre arc.

FIRST statement of intent made by defender Trent McKenzie while Port Adelaide set the agenda for a physical derby in which every contest was true to the deepest meaning of the Showdown. Of course, there always is the risk of collateral damage from "friendly fire" as midfielder Zak Butters felt from team-mate Sam Powell-Pepper in time-on of the first term as they chased down a Crows rival from the ; spillage of a centre bounce.

STRONG start with the first five-goal opening since round 13 last season in the Thursday night clash with Geelong at Adelaide Oval. The 19-point lead at quarter-time was a re-assuring pointer on the lessons learned from the review of the 10-goal loss to Hawthorn at home six days earlier.

SHARPER defensive actions, such as wingman Karl Amon's reflex tackle of Ned McHenry at the top of the Adelaide attacking arc late in the second term that launched a rebound play finished by Marshall kicking his third goal.

Port Adelaide had six players in their first Showdown - Mayes, midfielders Jackson Mead and Jed McEntee, defenders Lachie Jones and Sam Skinner and medical substitute Martin Fredericks.

Mead made his first derby almost as memorable as that of his father Darren, the best player of Showdown I in April 1997. His willingness to compete for the contested and ground balls with head down over the ball; to stay composed and work across large sections of the ground bodes well for a young player who has had to wait for this moment in the AFL.

SHOWDOWN LI

PORT ADELAIDE          5.2       9.7        11.12     13.14 (92)

ADELAIDE                      2.1       7.3        10.5        15.6  (96)

BEST - Port Adelaide: Boak, Marshall, Wines, Lycett, Byrne-Jones.

GOALS - Port Adelaide: Marshall 5, Georgiades, Mayes 2, Drew, Frederick, Lycett, Motlop.

INJURY - Skinner (ankle - subbed out last term).

MEDICAL SUBSTITUTE - Martin Frederick (activated for last quarter to replace Skinner).

CROWD: 39,190 at Adelaide Oval

NEXT: v Melbourne at Adelaide Oval, Thursday evening