PORT ADELAIDE will be looking to make it four wins in a row against North Melbourne when the sides meet on Saturday afternoon.
The last three meetings between the Power and Kangaroos have ended in Port wins by eight, 28 and 70 points.
Two of those wins were at Etihad Stadium where this week’s game will be, but for the most part Port Adelaide’s record at the Docklands venue isn’t good.
The Power has lost three of its last four at Etihad, while the Kangaroos have won six of the nine clashes between the sides there.
North had the first nine wins in games involving the sides between 1997 and 2003, and overall has a convincing record of 21 wins to eleven against Port.
History suggests the Kangaroos have not lost in Round 6 since 2012 and under Coach Brad Scott have had only one loss in Round 6 from eight games.
But records are made to be broken, and the Power will draw confidence from its last outing against North when it won by 70 points at Adelaide Oval.
It’ll be the second consecutive week the Power will face a side coached by a Scott brother, having played Chris Scott’s Geelong last week.
Teams
Port Adelaide has made two changes to its line-up for the match with star defender Hamish Hartlett’s knee injury at training to rule him out for the rest of the season and forward Lindsay Thomas banned for three games by the AFL tribunal.
Wingman Dom Barry returns to the line-up after missing two games, while fleet-footed forward Aidyn Johnson comes in for his first taste of AFL football in 2018.
The Kangaroos have made just the one change, with last year's No.5 pick Luke Davies-Uniacke returning after being rested last week at the expense of Shaun Higgins, who has failed to recover from a serious concussion.
Higgins was hospitalised and required plastic surgery to his lip after a much-scrutinised collision with Hawthorn’s Ryan Burton.
Coaches
Ken Hinkley
“They’re in fantastic form, they’re in third on the ladder and playing some really good football, other than the game in northern Queensland when it was played in water, they’re going to be a real handful for us.
“They’re playing at home and we’re going to have to meet them head on.
“I think you’ve got to put pressure on up the field and if you let Ben Brown run at the ball he’s in the top two or three, maybe the top one or two in the competition – he’s in fantastic form.
“There’s a real challenge for our group as backs to get the job done down there because they’ve got Waite and Ziebell playing down there as well, so it’ll be an interesting little challenge but pressure on the ball is going to be the most significant thing in stopping Ben.”
Brad Scott
“Our best has proven to be pretty good but we know with the age and experience of our group there’s going to be some significant challenges throughout the year.
“We only played them once last year at the Adelaide Oval and we had a very different looking team, we were very injury hit at that stage of the year, but Port have played some really good footy.
“They beat Sydney in Sydney but were obviously beaten last week - but they are a good side and we know that if we can produce our best football for four quarters then we’re half a chance.
“They don’t have too many weaknesses, the Ryder (injury) has hurt them a little bit primarily because they are such a good stoppage team.
“If Ryder’s getting first hands to the ball, Robbie Gray, Ollie Wines and Brad Ebert become even better players than they already are.”
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