KEN HINKLEY lamented his side’s inability to make a contest in the forward 50 late in the game, in Port Adelaide’s seven-point loss to Richmond on Saturday evening.

Hinkley said there were too many occasions where the Tigers’ defenders took marks in crucial moments of the game.

“There were things we could have done better,” Hinkley said in the post-match press conference.

“We had lots of entries but we just let them mark the ball too much.

“We can say Grimes did a great job - which he did - but we didn’t make it at all hard on him.

“We allowed him to get some pretty easy looks at the ball so that’s our responsibility as a team.

“We didn’t make it hard for them.”

The senior coach believed the visitors’ tackling pressure and style of play was the difference between the two sides.

“Their style of football is what beat us,” he said.

“We’ve seen that and we knew what that was, and they were good enough to execute it.

“We had enough opportunities but they were good enough to win.”

Hinkley admits his side has some challenges in wanting to play their style of game each week, and believes they weren’t able to do that against the Tigers.

“There is still plenty of work for us to do,” he said.

“We’ve got a long way to go to become anything like the Richmond Football Club.

“They are consistent in what they do.

“I said to our players inside that we wanted to play the way we do and we didn’t play the way we wanted to.

“Richmond certainly played their way of playing, so that is a good lesson for us is that when there is a commitment to playing it the right way, it’s all game and every week.

“There are some challenges for us.”