PORT ADELAIDE assistant coach Jarrad Schofield wasn’t using his side’s injury list as an excuse for its 20-point loss to Adelaide on Saturday night.

Schofield said Port had enough opportunities to make an impact on the scoreboard but was unable to capitalise on a 53-36 clearance count and a 69 to 62 inside 50 discrepancy.

“We go into a game with 22 players fit and ready to go,” Schofield told SEN SA’s Breakfast program.

“Players were given opportunities and unfortunately as a team we didn’t get the result we were obviously looking for.

“There were certain periods in the game where we had opportunities, had enough inside 50s and just didn’t take those opportunities to put on scoreboard pressure.

“At the end of the day, it was probably a game that was a bit hit and miss.”

The 44-year-old said the move of Dougal Howard into the forward half in the third quarter was a positive, but he wouldn’t lay the blame of the loss on the misfiring forward line.

“Howard going forward definitely worked for us,” Schofield said.

“He gave us a little bit of life there.

“It wasn’t just the key forwards (struggling), collectively we weren’t able to make the most of our inside 50s as a forward unit.

“We all take responsibility for the effort of everyone and not just place it on one particular line.

“Some of our ball entry wasn’t as precise as we would’ve liked.

“We will review the game today and make sure that we start kicking a winning score.”

Schofield said it was disappointing to drop the last two games but says the evenness of the competition means the side isn’t too far off the pace after eight rounds.

“The competition is so even,” he said.

“As we’ve seen there are a games where we probably didn’t take our opportunities and you’d like to think we might’ve walked away with the win.

“At this stage, we are 4-4 and still in the mix and we are looking forward to Gold Coast this week.”