This story originally appeared on afl.com.au
PORT COACH Ken Hinkley says his side deserves to be labelled ''pretenders" after again coming up short against a top eight side at the Adelaide Oval on Saturday night.
But Hinkley remains convinced the Power is not playing pretender football, and has pinpointed forward-50 conversion as the club's sole problem
Port fell to Richmond by 13 points and is now 0-5 against top-eight opposition in 2017.
The Power led the contest by 16 points late in the third term but was overrun by the Tigers and made to rue their wastefulness.
Port Adelaide won the inside-50s by 16 and the contested possession count by 28, but lost the only statistical column that really mattered - the scoreboard.
Hinkley said his side deserved the "pretender" criticism coming its way.
"It's fair," he said when asked post-match about how the tag sat with the group.
"The commentary around that stuff is obvious and for us we can't deny it.
"We're not going to dispute it. We haven't been able to get that right...We've played some sides where we've had great opportunities and we haven't been able to put it away in any of those games, so we have to wear the tag of not good enough against the top eight sides when it counts the most."
The Power kicked 3.7 from set-shots to Richmond's 7.1 and it would prove the decisive statistic.
Matt White missed two sitters and Ollie Wines also missed a relatively easy shot at a big time in the third term.
"(Set shot) goal kicking is absolutely a problem for us,'' Hinkley said.
"We do plenty of work on it, but you've got to be able to execute when the pressure is at its highest and that's game day. We haven't been able to do that consistently...
"You can look through all the other numbers but the reality is, if you don't get the scoreboard right when you get your chances then you leave sides in games."
Hinkley said he believed conversion was the only thing stopping Port beating the best side's in the league and said it played at a good enough level to be a contender in every other element of the game.
He said the club would continue to work tireless to improve its inside-50 efficiency.
"We get the questions about why we can't beat the best teams in the competition, for us it's nothing more than conversion,'' he said.
"Most of the other parts of our game are done pretty well.
"As a football club you can't work any harder on inside-50 conversion than we are currently working.
"It's on our agenda every training session that we do... if you come and watch us train, you'll see inside-50 drills going on all the time.
"We look at the details as closely as any club can possibly look at it."
Hinkley played Jackson Trengove as a defensive forward on Alex Rance and the tactic worked for a half before the Richmond champion found a way to have major impact on the game.
Hinkley praised Rance but defended the tactic.
Hamish Hartlett left the ground with a badly corked thigh in the third term. Hinkley hoped the defender would be available for Port's clash with West Coast in Perth.
