With a crushing defeat at the hands of Collingwood at the MCG on Saturday, Port Adelaide was subjected to one of their worst “reality checks” of the year.
The Pies, who had trailed by 31 points at the half, broke out after the quarter and won their third straight game by kicking 14 goals to 6 after the first intermission.
Power coach Ken Hinkley laments the wasted chance following a lackluster performance against the defending premiers, noting that his midfield, which includes promising guns Connor Rozee, Zak Butters, and Jason Horne-Francis, has struggled over the last two weeks.
After the game, Hinkley stated, “Our last two weeks would suggest that’s perhaps not quite as accurate as we would like it to be.”
“We believe we have a very strong midfield group, but we haven’t performed at the necessary level over the last two weeks.
We have had our ups and downs, but Collingwood showed up after the halfway point.
We must accept this statistic as reality. That one is hard to hide from.
It’s worrisome for the present. It contradicts our past experiences, and we are reminded that there is still a gap that has to be filled.
“Those (contested possession) numbers pretty much work into work rate and contest and I think that would be fair,” Hinkley said.
“I’m not going to hide from it. Collingwood was much better at turning up more reliably, more consistently and in the contest they were more predictable.
“They were playing aggressive and they continue to play aggressive, but what they did when they played aggressive was continue to turn up and that makes it much easier for them to play their style of football which is pretty powerful.”
Appearing to hurt his hamstring late in the piece, Hinkley put Power fans at ease that Horne-Francis, believed it was just a “cramp”.
While the club is worried about Miles Bergman’s rolled ankle, teammate Lachie Jones received worse than ideal news. He will be sent for diagnostics on his probable hamstring injury.
“I’m always nervous about predicting this sort of stuff at the end of the day.”He should get checked out; I believe Lachie Jones had a minor hamstring problem. Because of his past, he was unable to obtain the essential power to resume his career, so we decided not to take that unwarranted risk.
“I think Bergman rolled his ankle late in the game but I would hope that’s pretty reasonable.”
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