CAN you play Todd Marshall and Mitch Georgiades in the same forward 50?

Yes, you can. But that is not the burning question anymore.

Now it is about how Port Adelaide responds in the preliminary final rematch with Richmond at Adelaide Oval on Friday night when the AFL premier is also smarting after a telling loss during the bizarre Easter weekend.

The original question on the new Marshall-Georgiades tandem could not have been cleared away anymore emphatically on a night when Port Adelaide forwards were uncharacteristically starved of inside-50 entries.

They combined for five of Port Adelaide's 11 goals, Marshall with 3.1 and Georgiades with 2.1 (45 per cent of the team score that featured just six goalscorers while Port Adelaide found a clamp on its high-scoring game).

At half-time, when the match was firmly in West Coast's hands with a 52-point lead, Georgiades had both of Port Adelaide's two goals. At three quarter-time, Georgiades and Marshall had four of Port Adelaide's six goals - and the tandem lived a critical moment for the (short) highlights reel. Proving their height as forwards is not the key issue in measuring their varied talents, Georgiades smothered former West Coast captain Shannon Hurn's kick and put the ball on the path for Marshall's second goal.

So there is the footnote from a wild night in the West when Port Adelaide wanted to test its new playbook against a West Coast team that, as coach Ken Hinkley put it in the build-up, has given his team enough heartbreak in recent years. This time, there was serious heartburn from that overwhelming tidal wave of midfield dominance built on the deft ruck work of West Coast ruckman Nic Naitanui.

At half-time, even with Scott Lycett winning the hit-out count 14-13 on Naitanui, West Coast's midfielders had a 23-13 advantage on clearances, 9-4 at centre. The most-telling note from this dominance was Port Adelaide having just 19 inside-50 entries and most of these built up from rebound at half-back rather than with dynamic run from inside the centre square.

There are many questions for Port Adelaide to deal with from a performance that contradicted everything seen with high-scoring wins during the pre-season matches against Adelaide and in the opening two home-and-away clashes with North Melbourne and Essendon.

At least there was no second-half capitulation with Port Adelaide winning the third term by five points and the final quarter by 10.

Richmond arrives at Adelaide Oval - scene of its one-goal win against Port Adelaide in the preliminary final - with coach Damien Hardwick admitting his playbook needs to be adjusted and his fear of this was confirmed during Saturday's 45-point loss to the unbeaten Sydney at the MCG.

But Port Adelaide's game plan was dealt with during the off-season - and the ink in the playbook becomes quickly invisible if the Port Adelaide midfielders are blitzed, as they were by an impressive West Coast unit savouring hit-outs to advantage from Naitanui.

There was this moment last season - in Round 5 when, during shortened games, Port Adelaide also was held to two goals in a first half by a dominant Brisbane midfield crew at the Gabba.

It was very clear what Port Adelaide had to do after that 37-point loss to Brisbane that was followed up by a season-defining 17-point win against 2019 grand finalist Greater Western Sydney on the Gold Coast seven days later.

It is no different with the six-day turnaround to dealing with a smarting AFL premier on Friday night at Adelaide Oval. Every Port Adelaide midfielder should expect a lot of heat this week.