NINE games into the SANFL season, Port Adelaide sits in third place on the ladder having faced some stiff challenges and, in parts, played quality football.

Beaten by the current league leaders – Norwood and Woodville-West Torrens – and surviving scares from lower teams like Central District and Glenelg, the Magpies are well placed to push ahead on the league ladder.

With nine games left in the season and sitting three games ahead of sixth-ranked Sturt, the Magpies have nonetheless given the competition a taste of blood through inconsistent efforts in recent weeks.

With the Bulldogs and Tigers coming close, and the Crows pushing hard in Balaklava, the Magpies haven’t enjoyed the dominant start that characterised their 2014 season.

But they have produced some stellar performances.

Against South in Round 2 and West Adelaide last week, Port has shown it is more than capable of producing its best football against similarly positioned teams.

The key for its back nine of this home-and-away season is to make sure it consistently performs within games.

The first challenge is against the Adelaide Crows at Alberton Oval in what should be a well-attended game (more than 6,000 came last year).

That is quickly followed by a game against North Adelaide, which will be looking to atone for a poor start to the year under the leadership of new coach Michael Handby.

Then it’s the big challenge of back-to-back road battles against Norwood and the Eagles.

For senior coach Garry Hocking, four-quarter football has been high on the agenda.

We sat down with Buddha to debrief the first half of the season, and preview what’s to come…

Q: So Buddha, what have you taken out of the first nine games of this season?

Hocking: We started the year very well - off what wasn’t a great pre-season - went to Noarlunga and played four quarters of footy.

Last year we lost at the Parade in Round 1 and then went on to win the next nine, so to play that way against South was great. It was a great win: we were strong, played the footy we wanted to, and in the last quarter the players were as hungry as we’ve seen them.

So we won two and then lost two. Those two losses came against the sides that sit one and two on the ladder now - we’ve got a challenge over the next month when we get the opportunity to play them again to see whether we’ve improved.

We’ve now won five in a row, though they’ve been inconsistent - we’ve started well and finished poorly, started poorly and finished well.

Q: Is that more to do with the players or the quality of their opposition?

In this competition you can’t flick the switch when you want to, there’s too many good teams.

There’s a certain style we want to play, a certain brand we want to exhibit every time we play – for our supporters and for the oppo.

The question we ask ourselves is: when they come and watch, what do they see? Do they see a ruthless approach all the time, over four quarters?

Q: Is there a game that has particularly shown that approach?

I was really happy with the West Adelaide game. It was 4-v-3, we played the most attacking opposition from a scoring point a view. We came and, aside from losing the first quarter scoreboard, I think we had a four-quarter effort.

You could see that everyone decided we needed to play that way and it’s what we want to be seeing.

It’s just about making sure we can play four quarters of footy, week in, week out.

Q: So do you think the lapses in games come back to the mentality of the group?

I think it is. There’s no doubt that physically and in the way we play, there’s winning potential there, but it’s the mental space I think we just need to make sure that we rock up and play every week.

Whether you weren’t selected for the AFL team, whether you’re tired or sore, you’ve got to go out and play your heart out and whether we play top or tenth of the ladder, we need to make sure we are consistent.

Q: It’s a young group, how do you find these players to coach?

Sometimes, with the way we win, I feel like I’m coaching a real mature group, in the way they go about their footy, the style of footy they play, but then I go and do the sums on the team and we’re 21 years old, compared to, say, Sturt or Norwood or Eagles who are 24 years of age.

It reminds you that they’re still young - 20 per cent of our players are in their first year - learning the ropes.

Dougal Howard, Billy Frampton, Jesse Palmer are all basically fresh out of colts or TAC footy and playing against men.

Q: How does the boys-against-men situation work for players like them?

Here’s an example: Darcy Byrne-Jones played on Porplyzia last week for a little bit. Now, outside of helping us win week-to-week, part of his development is to play on those better players.

We need to up-skill our players and lift their standards. You don’t want to throw them to the wolves, but if there’s an opportunity for them to play on Kurtze, or Kirkwood, or Panos – high-quality oppo - we try get them to do that. Part of the challenge in doing that is getting them to learn and not be ridiculed or lose confidence from going up a level too soon.

Q: Is your mentality that these young guys will need to play against one of these opponents eventually, so you’ll try and introduce them to that challenge early on?

Why not do it in your first year and get something out of it? Why wait two or three years and tiptoe around it? These kids have got to get into our system, learn very quickly and try and find the water level for them - is it high, low or in between?

It gives the player a little taste of what it could be like at AFL level, but in their first game - if they go into their first SANFL game and they’re playing on Kurtze, they step up. Then if they’re playing on Naitanui in their first AFL game, they know what to expect because they’ve seen how quickly a level can jump.

Q: What are you looking for in the final four games?

Four-quarter efforts and to challenge the teams we play weekly. Winning trumps everything, but underneath that you need to make sure your players are ‘on’ week-to-week and playing a consistent four quarters.

Part of my job is to keep them happy, keep them humming and really drive high standards. The challenge is to make sure that, even though you’re winning, you don’t neglect team care and the standards that come with that.

We’ve got Adelaide post-bye, then obviously North with a new coach – always dangerous – and then we play one [Norwood] and two [Eagles]. After that we’ll have a pretty good picture of where we’re at.