Port Adelaide assistant coach Darren Reeves said energy was high on Tuesday as the group had its first day together since the win over North Melbourne on Sunday. 

It was the first time the Power has won two in a row this season, with the team able to back up the huge Showdown effort from the weekend prior. 

Reeves spoke to the media, touching on how his forward line is tracking, Jason Horne-Francis’ consistency, and gave an update on Sam Powell-Pepper. 

Reeves on training at SASI on Tuesday 
“It's easy to be up and about after a win, and we've been here a couple of times over the last few weeks. (It’s a good) vibe, and just somewhere different, and being a short turnaround is important that we're able to get the energy going pretty quickly at the start of the week. This was a perfect scenario for us today to be here in great facilities and doing things a little bit differently. 

Reeves on having a consistent attitude through the season   
“Right from the start of pre-season, Josh (Carr) was pretty clear on what we wanted to do and how we wanted to go about it, and results, win or loss, wasn't going to change that process. And I feel like through the course of the year, the players have been able to buy into everything we've been doing, and the results haven't gone our way at different times, but we've been really strong at staying in games and staying in contests and giving us ourselves a chance to win against really good football teams. We've got some reward over the last couple of weeks against a couple of really good teams, and so the guys see a bit of belief come out of that, so it's easy to keep that confidence and that energy up amongst the group from that.” 

Reeves on getting two wins in a row 
“It wasn't something that we spoke about as a group leading in that scenario, it was more around, what's next? And North Melbourne was the next chance for us to go and improve our game, and that was the focus all week. It was an eight day turnaround, so we had plenty of time to think about it and recover and be ready to go, and it was a challenging game. It wasn't a pretty game at times. We certainly didn't play our best footy for three quarters, but it's really pleasing that we were able to play a really strong brand in the last quarter and stick to our process, own the game and own the territory and get the result in the end. So that was really pleasing.” 

Reeves on finding a way to win on Saturday 
“That was part of our review today…what was our mindset at three quarter time, what was our messaging, how did we go and execute that in the last quarter? And we've probably been in that position a couple of times during the year. It's been really close to that point, you haven't quite got over the line, so it was a big tick for the group to be able to go and play the way we did. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but we just stuck at it, and we played the game in our forward half, and got a great result in the end. So that's really positive.” 

Reeves on Mitch Georgiades’ body 
“He's okay today. He's obviously sore. He copped a few whacks on the weekend. He's had a few general soreness issues over the last couple of weeks. We've been trying to manage him through that, and he's had a huge workload this year. He's obviously our main target inside forward 50. I think he's the most targeted player inside forward 50 in the competition. He gets the best defender week in, week out, he gets lots of attention. He's got some general soreness at the moment that we've been managing through, but to his credit, he just keeps rocking up contest after contest and doing a great job for us. 

“It's probably just been a build up over the last couple of weeks, more than anything. We've managed him through some training sessions, but I'm reasonably confident that he'll give himself every chance to play this weekend. It's a short turnaround too, which is a real challenge for him, but he's in pretty good headspace today, and hopefully he can keep getting moving over the next few days and be a big chance to play.” 

Reeves on the forward line 
“We're really confident in guys that could come in and play a role for us, and Mitch has been incredibly important for us, and will continue to be, but I think we've learned so far that we're not a one trick pony, we've got some other avenues as well. Jack Whitlock's been playing some great footy, and over the last couple of weeks, and our smalls were a little bit quieter on the weekend, but we certainly expect that they'll be up and about on Saturday afternoon.” 

Reeves on working on scoring more 
“It's been a real big focus for us for a period of time now. One, how we set the ground up to be able to move the ball a bit more efficiently, and we've seen over the last couple of weeks, our ability to be able to get the ball inside forward 50 a lot more. I think we had 57 (entries) on the weekend and dominated that space. We've spoken a lot around getting deeper entries, and how that could look for us, and we certainly did that against Adelaide. We were able to do it again on the weekend. It didn't translate into goals, but we've certainly given ourselves a better chance to do that, and now it's actually executing a little bit better, and making most of those opportunities when we do get it inside forward 50.” 

Reeves on goal-kicking 
“It's something we hone in every training session, be it a skills session, a main training session, a (craft) session that we have during the week. We're doing a lot of work on it, not just our forwards, our mids, and high half backs as well. It’s not reinventing the wheel, it's just keep going back to the well and keep doing the work, and it's looking at little things from a technique perspective with each of them. Johnny Corbett (skill acquisition coach) has a real plan with all of our players, of what their kick plan looks like, and for the forwards, it's the set shot routine, and they're certainly doing the work. I've seen it with different teams over the journey that they go through periods where it's not working for them. We feel like we're making great inroads, and you can't simulate the pressure that you get in a game when you've got 40,000 people there making noise. So that's part of our young guys learning to work through that.” 

Reeves on Jason Horne-Francis’s consistency 
“I think it's just been able to be really consistent in his preparation, getting game after game after game. He didn't have much of a pre-season, so that sort of left him on the back foot, and had to work his way into it, but I think he's certainly physically a lot fitter than he was at the start of the year. I think just confidence, and then probably for him just understanding what his process looks like week to week, and then within games as well. And being really clear on thinking about what's next, and not focusing on what happened previously, or what needs to happen from there. So he's been able to do that incredibly well over the last couple of weeks, and he's in a really good head space, and playing super footy. 

“You’ve got to remember, he's 23 years old, he's still very young in his career, and we know he's a high draft pick and an incredibly talented player, so expectation is that he’s going to continue to improve. And how we can help that happen quicker is really important, but a lot of it's been around how he's been able to do that himself.” 

Reeves on Sam Powell-Pepper 
“Pep’s obviously done a hell of a lot of work to get himself back to this point. He's physically going okay. There was no issue with his knee on the weekend, it's more around just being mentally ready to go his own head space. And there was just a little bit of an issue on the weekend that sort of concerned him a little bit, and the decision was made to keep him out of from there. He will go into a bit of a block of training now, and be making sure that he's 100% ready to go in all aspects, not just from a physical standpoint. 

“It's all about just getting everything right, and that time frame will take care of itself, whether it's this year, next year, that's not really that important. It’s around making sure that he's 100% ready to go. It's been a challenging couple of years for him, and he's still a young man. There's so much upside and importance in what he’s doing at the football club, and making sure we give him every chance to be the best version of himself, and that's the critical piece.” 

Reeves on Todd Marshall 
“He's in a really good head space. He's working really hard on his game and his craft. It was difficult at SANFL level on the weekend, they didn't play great footy, but from a forward line perspective, I watched him closely, and I loved his intent, his reaction to be able to get on the move and present at the footy. I loved his energy in defence, and sometimes that's not going to translate into lots of opportunity at that level, but we're certainly really pleased with how he's tracking, and he's on the right trajectory, which is really positive.” 

Reeves on limiting Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera this weekend 
“We’ll put some plans in place, but again, it's going to be around the team aspect of it, and how we can limit him as best we possibly can, and where he's getting his possessions, I think it's going to be really important as well. So, we'll put some plans in place over the next day or so, and go from there. 

Reeves on Harry Sheezel’s touches on the weekend 
“Yeah, that certainly was the conversation through the first half of third quarter. We probably had a lot more in-depth conversation around what it looked like and what we could possibly do, and in the end, we backed in our team system, and our last quarter was really strong, so it played out our way. It certainly was a discussion through the course of the game about what we could do and how we should do it, but in the end we stuck to what we planned and our system and it paid dividends.”