PORT ADELAIDE coach Ken Hinkley says his side will need to move on pretty quickly from Saturday night’s disappointing loss to St Kida.

Playing at home at Adelaide Oval for the first time in six weeks, Port was overrun in the last quarter with the Saints booting the last five goals of the game to win by 29 points in front of around 19,000 supporters.

Port Adelaide lost most of the key statistics but Hinkley said his side was particularly beaten up around the ball.

“I think the contest stuff was the biggest challenge for us,” Hinkley said after the game.

“We weren’t able to be as big and as hard as we needed to be and they were much harder and much stronger and they were making us pay more than we were making them pay with their movement of the ball when they went forward.

“They were better than us around the ball tonight. They had dominance in the rucks and were able to get ground level dominance as well and they were physicaly stronger.

“That’s a challenge for our boys because a couple of times we’ve been beaten that’s where we’ve been beaten. It’s not that we’re not capable but there’s been nights where we haven’t been able to perform at the level we want.

“I don’t want anyone to think we’re not hard enough – we’re generally a pretty hard team but tonight we weren’t.”

The Saints won the hit-outs 40-16, clearances 42-30 and had 130 contested possessions to 118.

But it was on the scoreboard, where they became the most accurate team in VFL/AFL history with 12.1, that they did the most damage.

Hinkley said it wasn’t due to a lack of height in the backline, rather it was about how much supply the St Kilda forwards got and how efficient they were with it.

“I don’t think it was an in the air issue from us. I think it was a supply issue coming down,” he said.

“We had Westy (Justin Westhoff) down there so we were taller than we have been in recent weeks so I don’t think height’s the issue.

“It’s the way the ball comes that will cause you problems and to be fair, I think they only kicked one point.

“They didn’t miss so, even the score review, we’ve spoiled the ball, it’s not a height issue, it’s their ability to be effective when they got it in there and they’ve been good at it all year.”

For the first 15 minutes of the second half, Port Adelaide was dominant but managed just one goal for all of their territory and possession.

“In the third quarter we were playing our game better than we had been for most of the night and we just weren’t able to put the score on the board,” Hinkley lamented.

“They kicked incredibly accurately and we wasted one or two opportunities that would have made it feel slightly different at times.”

Port Adelaide will now turn its attention to playing Melbourne on Thursday night.

The five-day break almost a blessing in disguise for Hinkley’s men who won’t have much time to focus on what was a poor night in front of a crowd which was craving footy action.

“We’ve got to move on pretty quickly and we have to work on our contest, there’s no doubt, we have to work on parts of our game every week,” Hinkley said.

“We won’t hide away from it. We’ll get on the front foot and look to play a better game next week.”

Hinkley ended his press conference with a passionate discussion around the umpiring of matches after some decisions he labelled “interesting” on Saturday night.

He implored decision makers to allow umpires to do their job at following the rules, without changes from week to week.

“I’m not an umpire basher at all but gee that was interesting,” Hinkley said.

“I’ll say this, the challenge with the umpiring is that it should not change from week to week. That’s confusing for everyone – the players, for the umpires.

“The game shouldn’t get adjusted from week to week. The rules are the rules, we just need to umpire them consistently, like I want my team to play consistently.

“You can’t tell me that coaches talking about the umpiring, Gill talking about the umpiring or me talking about the umpiring and trying to  make an adjustment.

“And for umpires to have a week to week focus. Their focus shouldn’t change from round one to round whatever we play because their focus should be to umpire the rules as they’re written.

“Then everyone will become clear with what to expect. There is absolutely no doubt it’s more confusing today than it’s ever been.”

Port Adelaide next faces Melbourne at the Gabba in Brisbane from 7:20pm ACST on Thursday night.