Port Adelaide senior coach Josh Carr addressed media this morning as his side prepare to travel to Marvel Stadium to play Hawthorn tomorrow afternoon.

Speaking at Adelaide Airport ahead of the team's departure, Carr discussed how Zak Butters has handled a week in the spotlight, reviewing the loss to St Kilda in Gather Round and how the playing group is preparing for the challenge of taking on the Hawks.

Carr on Zak Butters

"He came in on Wednesday morning with a smile on his face and said he was ready to go. He's matured a lot over the years and learned a lot about himself and how he deals with this sort of stuff, so I've got absolute confidence in what it looks like for this game. When he gets challenged, he only gets better."

Carr on the St Kilda review – starts and finishes

"Our intent in the first ten minutes was there, but we've got to maintain that intent for longer – we need to fix that. In the last quarter we probably just didn't handle it — we tried to win it too quickly. We weren't patient enough and we felt like we weren't totally in control. Some great lessons came out of that about how you deal with a situation under pressure."

Carr on game style

"Our transition between the arcs is pretty good. The way we defend the turnover and score off the turnover has been a real highlight. It's probably been more around our defensive fifty exits — we haven't been overly aggressive there, and it's been around the contests. One of the reasons Dante (Visentini) comes in is about the contests and giving us something to work with there."

Carr on Miles Bergman

"Everyone's got some sort of niggle after five or six games. Miles' situation has improved each week. He had a great pre-season and got to the start line in good shape— there’s just been some bad moments for his body. I don't think we've totally helped him either. He'll get settled, he's going to play in a position down back and he'll be fine."

Carr on Jack Lukosius

"He hasn’t had a lot of luck. He had a broken kneecap last year — that's the main obvious physical thing. If your team's not performing and your form hasn't been great, you're going to have to deal with some challenges. He'd be disappointed that he got out there and hasn’t reached his best form yet, but we’ll look at how he comes out of this situation — I know he’ll he spend time working hard on his recovery and we will support him with that.”

Carr on Hawthorn

"Jack Gunston and Mabior Chol are both out, but it doesn't change the way we set up. Will McCabe comes in — he's a good size, quite athletic. And Calsher Deer is the other one. They're a team that's been talked about as being right up there at the end of the year, so it’s a big challenge that we look forward to."