PORT ADELAIDE goes into its bye with its win-loss ledger at 5-6 and some important lessons around sticking together, retaining belief and being resilient.
Against an Essendon side which dominated centre clearances and fought back from a 31-point half time deficit, Ken Hinkley’s men held out as pelting rain set in at Adelaide Oval after the break to win 9.12 (66) to 6.14 (50).
Following Sunday evening’s game, the Port coach was glad to come away with the points given the trying conditions.
“I said to the boys yesterday this is a game where we just need to get to 5-6,” Hinkley said of his side’s response from losing its first five games of the season. “We talked about the weather and a good start was important because of the weather.
“The rain, when it came in after half time, it was going to be hard to score so I’m just happy to get the four points.
“Obviously, to get to this stage of the year after our start, I’m pretty proud of the way we’ve managed to get back into the competition.
“We’re certainly not sold on the competition yet but we’re strong into it and we’ve given ourselves a chance in the second part of the season.”
The Bombers got hold of the ball in the middle with 14 clearances to four and Hinkley said they won the contested footy, dominated field position and built pressure during the third term when they closed to within eight points.
Hinkley said it was a good example of an area for improvement for his side.
“The consistency of what we do (is important),” he explained. “When we’re good, we’re good but when we fall away – and the third quarter is a good example of around the ball we lost control of the ball. We got control back in the last quarter but we need to be able to play four quarters consistently well and that’s where we’re still building.
“We need personnel to play four quarters and to be able to get more game time into them and continuity as a team, which has been disrupted a fair bit in the early part of the year.”
A positive was the return of forward spearhead Charlie Dixon for his first game of the season following two rounds of ankle surgery.
Last year’s leading goal kicker booted two goals from limited opportunities and was feeling the strain of his first AFL match since last year’s preliminary final.
“That’s what he talked about after the game just how tired he was,” Hinkley said.
“He said ‘I thought I got through the Magpies game in pretty good shape at the end of it but he said by gee tonight, I realised AFL football is a bit harder and quite a big step up.
“In his own words, he was out there but probably not helping too much. (But) I was pretty pleased to see him out there to be honest.”
Having now had the win-loss ledger restored to a more respectable 5-6 and keeping his side in the finals hunt, Hinkley reflected that there were some good takeaways.
“We have learnt to stick at it, stick together and not give up hope,” he said.
“We’ve had to handle a fair bit in the first half (of the season) by our own doing. (The players have) had to stick to task and they’ve had to keep an environment that was really connected and wanting to play together still.
“They had an opportunity to probably somewhat lose a bit of hope but they didn’t. They stuck at it.
“Resilience is something you get at times when you don’t want it.”
Port Adelaide will have a bye next week before a blockbuster Thursday night encounter with Richmond at the MCG.
The football group will enjoy a four-day break before returning to prepare to face the Tigers.
“We unfortunately only get a ten-day break. We don’t get a two-week break, which is ok but we only get the ten days so getting back to work will be good for us,” Hinkley said.
“But they do need a rest because the game is really hard to play.”
