Port Adelaide assistant coach Luke Webster said this week’s review was once again detailed and player-led, following a loss to Collingwood on Saturday night.  

At least two changes will be required heading into Showdown LX, with confirmation that Esava Ratugolea and Ewan Mackinlay won’t return for the rest of the season after suffering serious injuries.  

Webster spoke to the Adelaide media on Monday to discuss the game review, give updates on injured players and look ahead to the Showdown on Saturday night. 

Webster on the game review 
“It was a good review. We were really clear with the players, like we have been doing the last few weeks, we've given them a whole range of stats to work their way through and find the edits that they would like to look at that reflected the type of game that we played. It was great buy-in from the playing group again around the areas that we’ve got to continue to keep getting better at. A lot of it was around our entries and then our ability to defend behind those. I know Carry (Josh Carr) spoke about it after the game, and it was a good conversation there around the shallow entries versus your deep entries. How do we connect? How do we get better looks? We're creating more and more opportunities for us now, but how do we keep creating better opportunities for ourselves? And a big part of that was also off the back of some of those shallow entries, how do we defend behind them as well? We didn't get that part of the game right either.” 

Webster on the impact injuries have on a playing group 
“Yeah, it certainly was (deflating), particularly to lose those two guys in that contest after contest, and obviously to lose a guy who was having a big impact on the game as well in Sav (Esava Ratugolea). It's always a hard one to bounce back from, but I thought our players did a reasonable job after that, even to still continue to keep fighting in that last quarter. I think we kicked five points, had five shots on goal. If we kick a little bit straighter, who knows, we get a little bit more momentum. I thought the boys hung in there really well. And as much as we didn't get that part right in the second half, those (injured) guys are going to be big losses.” 

Webster on taking lessons each week 
“We want to get better quickly, so we’ve got to keep finding ways to help our playing group understand the brand of footy that we want to play, and the moments where we don't get that quite right. It is frustrating that our best footy has been really good, and we still haven't been winning, but also the times when we let ourselves down, we've got to continue to show those players and our group of what it looks like, and how do we continue to put ourselves in better positions to win more footy.” 

Webster on goal-kicking accuracy 
“Yeah, it's a part of it (getting the ball in better positions to take shots at goal). We'd like to get some better shots on goal, definitely. We know we got a couple of players that are working their way through their set shot routines, our live ball snaps, and on the run, we’ve got to continue to keep improving. A big part of hopefully getting some better accuracy is going to be where we're going to now hopefully be able to connect inside 50.” 

Webster on Jack Lukosius 
“Yeah, we did (get a good result in terms of his injury). He's still going to be a test for this weekend, but yeah, that was a good result for him. As far as I'm aware, his Baker’s cyst burst and it gives you a little bit of a mechanism of what it feels like to tear a calf, but it was only that. Hopefully he starts to continue to improve in the next couple of days, gets through training and will be a test for the weekend.  

“He started the game really well. He was one of the guys that was really helping us have the game on our terms, so to lose him at that period (was disappointing) but again, it's a good result for our group that obviously there’s going to be an opportunity to be able to get up for this weekend.” 

Webster on Todd Marshall’s form 
“A part of it, for a whole forward line is going to be how we enter the ball a little bit better. Todd still had three shots on goal, kicked three points, so he's getting some opportunities. How does he execute and finish off his work? He’s working through a lot, missed a lot of footy. We swung him back, had some good improvement areas, and some areas that he needed to work with. Then we knew that we needed to give some more support to George (Mitch Georgiades) in our forward line, and put him forward. And he's just got to continue to keep working on his game and keep finding confidence in that brand of footy that we know that he can play. He's not getting it all on his own terms at the moment, but he's got to continue to keep doing the work during the week. 

“I think at the moment we'll keep him forward. We know that we had the potential to swing him back if we need to, but I think he continued to keep helping us our forward line. Obviously Harrison Ramm played another game on the weekend. We've got to keep getting footy into him. We know Aliir’s had a great season so far, and hopefully, as I mentioned before, with Thatch, he's played some really good footy back in the SANFL and we know that he's ready to go when he needs to come in.” 

Webster on Brandon Zerk-Thatcher 
“He’s been knocking the door down all year. His SANFL form has been terrific. He hasn't had his opportunity yet, obviously, with Sav going out of the team, we need to look at selection this afternoon. We made a call, obviously after the game, to pull him out of the SANFL yesterday to give us an opportunity to have a really fresh player if we wanted to bring him in, but yeah, he'll certainly be in strong consideration this week.” 

Webster on Esava Ratugolea 
“He had surgery yesterday. So, he's out of surgery, it all went really well. Obviously, it's going to be a long-term injury for him. We won't see him the rest of this year, but by all reports he's in good spirits. He's still in Melbourne. The boys have gotten around him. I got a message from him yesterday, he's in good spirits.” 

Webster on the Showdown 
“It’s going to be a good challenge. They're in good form. We'll look at last time we played them, we pushed them right to the wire, then, and obviously got ourselves in front and didn't quite finish it off. We'll certainly look at that game. We've got to look at what they've improved in, obviously their game plan, they're probably doing it a lot better than what they were when we played them the first time round. But certainly the foundations of our game, we're going to keep striving for, whether it's a Showdown or just any other game. Certainly these games are really special. Being a part of the first one, their home game, it's a great opportunity for our home crowd to come to a Showdown and really get behind us. We’re really looking forward to the challenge. 

“We need to acknowledge their form they're having, but again, like we just talked about in our review, it’s about continuing to be better ourselves and to keep chasing our game plan. We've seen it at its best, and yes, the win column doesn't correlate to our best footy just yet, but if we keep chasing that, we're going to put ourselves in a really good position to be able to win the game.” 

“I'm sure we'll talk about the last time, and we've talked about all the way through with some of those other close games. How do we continue to keep building our confidence and what we can do in those (close game) situations, and hopefully this week we get to finish that off.”