PORT ADELAIDE SANFL Coach Matthew Lokan has lamented his side’s inability to capitalise on its early dominance in its dramatic draw against the Eagles at Alberton Oval on Saturday afternoon.
The Magpies led for much of the contest against a wasteful Eagles outfit but fell behind in time on in the final quarter, before Lindsay Thomas missed a chance to put his side ahead.
It was the first time the sides had ever played out a draw with the final result the Magpies 4.4 (28) to 2.16 (28).
“I thought our guys had a really strong contribution over the whole game, we just weren’t able to hit the scoreboard, especially early on in the game,” Lokan said after addressing his players.
“And I thought our backs held up really strong for the whole four quarters so it’s a pretty quiet feeling in the change rooms after the game and having a draw is obviously not the ideal result after leading for most of the day.”
The Magpies took until the 22nd minute of the match to boot the opening goal and had two by quarter time, but failed to kick another until the last quarter.
The home side’s defence, led by Jasper Pittard on his return after a pre-season hamstring injury, held the Eagles goalless until the 14th minute of the final quarter.
To their credit they had sprayed numerous shots in wet and windy conditions but Lokan said he felt his side had done enough to hold out for a win.
“I just thought our ball use out of the back half, we probably just didn’t adapt to the conditions as well as what we should have so I think we need to work on the style of play that we want to play from the back half and being able to I suppose capitalise from the amount of ball that we had and the amount of forward entries we had,” he said.
Lokan praised the efforts of Pittard, who had 28 disposals including a game-high seven rebound 50s while keeping damaging young forward Jack Lukosius goalless.
In pre-season, Lukosius booted five goals when the sides met in a trial game.
Lokan was also pleased with the performance of Captain Steven Summerton, who had 26 possessions to half time and finished with 36.
Heading into the contest both sides were unbeaten, and Lokan said he expected the Eagles would be among the top sides at the end of the season.
“Credit to them, they were able to come back late in the game and would have to be up there as one of the Premiership favourites,” he said.
“They’ve got a really strong side, they’ve got a really good contribution across the whole ground.”
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