First impressions are so lasting in life - and football.

Port Adelaide is certainly impressive when a new AFL home-and-away season presents the first challenge along the marathon run to the premiership. Since senior coach Ken Hinkley boldly declared his team would "never give up" in the summer of 2012-2013, Port Adelaide has won eight of nine season openers (and the lone loss was by just seven points to eventual minor premier Fremantle in Perth in 2015).

Port Adelaide has won the past six season-openers of which only two have been at home at Adelaide Oval. So no-one can question Port Adelaide's readiness for season openers.

Saturday night's assignment at the Gabba in Brisbane will mark Port Adelaide's fourth consecutive road trip for an opening round. So much for that theory that rights to opening day at Adelaide Oval is on rotation between Port Adelaide and Adelaide ....

Port Adelaide and Brisbane have met in round one just once - in 2001 at Football Park at the start of their grand four-year rivalry that decided four AFL flags. Port Adelaide won that season-opener by six points, days after belting Brisbane in the pre-season cup final ... Brisbane later won the first of its three consecutive flags. It is a marathon ...

The chase for the AFL premiership is about the long game more so than first impressions.

As in 2001, four years after the AFL was reshaped to embrace Port Adelaide and to save league foundation club Fitzroy by a merger with Brisbane, the two clubs are again in each other's way in the race for glory in September. Both are highly regarded as top-four prospects again.

Port Adelaide has to move on from consecutive home preliminary final losses.

Brisbane has its own demons, in particular the record of just one win from six finals during the past three seasons.

And redemption is not a one-game mission. There are 22 matches to work through from March before anyone gets to close the scars of past Septembers.

Port Adelaide does face the immediate challenge to break a record-equaling four-game losing streak to Brisbane that - with three defeats at the Gabba - have come with 47, 37, 48 and 17-point margins. The other four-match losing run to Brisbane was from the darkest hours of 2009-2012.

FIRST UP

Greater Western Sydney recruit Jeremy Finlayson will play his first AFL match for Port Adelaide. A trade gain during the off-season, the 26-year-old forward will mark his 67th game in the big league as the most-experienced go-to forward in a new Port Adelaide attack deprived All-Australian Charlie Dixon by injury (ankle).

The raw combination of Finlayson, Mitch Georgiades and Todd Marshall delivered eight of the team's 17 goals in the summer Showdown win against Adelaide at Richmond Oval. The Brisbane defence led by a refreshed and fit Harris Andrews makes for a more challenging task.

Father-son recruit Jackson Mead finally - after being cursed by injury in recent years - gets his AFL start. Son of inaugural AFL club champion Darren, Jackson was pick No. 25 in the 2019 national draft and (while his father made his name as a defender) is an emerging midfielder/half-forward.

Despite working at the other end of the ground to his father, Jackson Mead proves the apple does not fall far from the tree.

"Tough, honest, hard footballer," said Ken Hinkley on introducing Mead to this weekend's AFL line-up.

FIRST TERMS

Port Adelaide is dogged by reminders of slow starts to games.

Brisbane is wary of slow starts to seasons, heavily reflecting on its 1-3 win-loss opening to Season 2021.

In the past four encounters (all won by Brisbane), Port Adelaide has lost the starts - by 21 points in the most-recent meeting in round seven last year, one point, 30 points and 14 points in 2019.

FIRST TOUCH

While contested football is made to be the key performance indicator in all Port Adelaide games, the underlying trend of AFL matches today is clear - win the contest, win the game. It is not just Port Adelaide.

Brisbane has by elite talent in the midfield and some creative tactics in getting numbers at the contest made Port Adelaide repeatedly reflect hard on its contest work. This time, Brisbane presents Brownlow Medallist Lachie Neale with Dayne Zorko after a challenging pre-season and Cam Rayner in his league return after a serious knee injury. And there is the industrious Jarryd Lyons and aggressive Mitch Robinson.

Port Adelaide is advancing its midfield options with the notable tyros with big assignments being Zak Butters and Willem Drew taking heat at centre bounces. There is the inside-outside Karl Amon, Connor Rozee, Xavier Duursma, Dan Houston moving from half-back to a wing, Mead and a recharged Sam Powell-Pepper ...

"We have ample options," says Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines. "We are almost going down a path of having a team full of mids.

"And we are all going to play forward at times. We have forwards who are capable of going on-ball or onto a wing."

FIRST THOUGHT

Research shows people will make many judgments of people within the first seven seconds of meeting someone for the first time. Round one of a new home-and-away season can create similar - but misleading - impressions. West Coast beat eventual premier Melbourne by 27 points in Perth last year ... and missed the top-eight finals for the first time in six years.

BIRD SEED

(the small stuff that matters)

Brisbane v Port Adelaide

Where: Gabba

When: Saturday, March 19, 2022

Time: 7.40pm (SA time)

Last time: Port Adelaide 5.14 (44) lost to Brisbane 13.15 (93) at the Gabba, round 7. May 1, last year 

Overall: Port Adelaide 18, Brisbane 19, 2 drawn

Past five games (most recent first): L L L L W 

Scoring average: Port Adelaide 93, Brisbane 95

Tightest margin - 0 from two draws, both at the Gabba: Round 20, 1997 and round 12, 1998.

Smallest winning margin - Port Adelaide by one point (104-103) at the Gabba in round 17, 2003; Brisbane by 10 points (86-76) at Football Park in round 2, 2003.

Biggest margin - Port Adelaide by 113 points (159-46) at Adelaide Oval in round 4, 2014; Brisbane by 69 points (147-78) at Football Park in round 8, 2006.

By venues - Adelaide Oval: Port Adelaide 4-1; Football Park: 7-6; Gabba: 6-2-12; MCG: 1-0.

OUCH! That hurts - on the scoreboard, in the medical rooms and in the guts that was busted in another classic encounter with Brisbane at the Gabba.

Port Adelaide's 11-point loss to a Brisbane that concedes it was taken to the limit at home is painful - and costly.

Despite ensuring there was no repeat of the poor starts that had sunk Port Adelaide in the previous four games to Brisbane; and regardless of a dominating hour across the second and third terms that set up a four-point lead, Port Adelaide has lost the season-opener for the first time since 2015.

And this defeat is costly with injury, in particular the left-knee injury to key defender Trent McKenzie. 

The admissions from several Brisbane players that they were challenged to the limit tells Port Adelaide did "turn up to play". The finish, under a wave of duress, will be hard to swallow.

Port Adelaide's biggest lead was 24 points entering time-on of the third term. It was all lost - with scores level at 61-61 - in the 10th minute of the last quarter while Brisbane created momentum with brazen running plays into space that were rewarded with a match-winning five-goal charge.

Brisbane's return to the lead - by six points with eight minutes to play and then 12 - was built on a dropped mark in open space by the Port Adelaide defender with the safest hands, Aliir Aliir. It was a sign that the pressure valve had burst.

Port Adelaide had nine goalscorers - and it was a midfielder, Dan Houston, who was the only player to manage more than one goal. His second was Port Adelaide's lone goal of the last term.  

Port Adelaide's new-look attack with the three pillars filled by Jeremy Finlayson, Mitch Georgiades and Todd Marshall finished with just two of the team's 10 goals. Marshall was the first to score a goal, late in the second term to put Port Adelaide in the lead for the second time. The timing of Marshall's lead - to get away from accomplished Brisbane key defender Harris Andrews - for a solid overhead mark on Steven Motlop's kick inside-50, underlines why the 23-year-old carries so much faith from his coaches and team-mates.

Georgiades had to wait until the third term for his first goal of Season 2022 - and will look at the review tape with frustration at the opportunities he let slip.

And Finlayson, who also worked in ruck, is left to wait to deliver his first goal in an AFL premiership season for Port Adelaide since leaving Greater Western Sydney during the trade period last year.

The other new look to the Port Adelaide line-up, Houston on the wing, delivered impressive early form. The former half-back reinforced his delivery is superb, with 75 per cent disposal efficiency during the first half. He finished with 36 disposals - rewriting career best that was 32 (22 kicks and 10 handballs) against St Kilda at Adelaide Oval in round 6 last year on Anzac Day.

Sometimes a team can try too hard to break a vice - and this game began with both Brisbane and Port Adelaide consumed by and determined to deal with their well-noted bad starts. But it was defensive systems - rather than any shoot-out tactics - that made the first term appear as tense as a sudden-death final more so than a season-opener.

Most strange was the reluctance of both teams to work the centre corridor, almost as if they had been warned off by the Gabba curator who is renowned for protecting the centre cricket square. Or they knew - as highlighted at the start of the second term - just how every attempt to put the Sherrin inside the corridor must be precise and the off-season cobwebs on both teams were evident by costly turnovers. 

Port Adelaide had just three shots on goal during the first term - Finlayson achieving the team's first score of the season with a behind from a free kick; Georgiades missing everything from a set shot and deep into time-on former captain Travis Boak achieved the team's lone goal of the term by perfecting reading an opportunity from the spills of a stoppage at the goalfront.

The Port Adelaide team that was frantic during the first term was the medical unit that had to deal with a continuous queue of injured men - first midfielder Zak Butters crunched, then experienced forward Robbie Gray (right knee in a knee-on-knee knock with Dayne Zorko) and with greater concern with wingman Xavier Duursma (left collarbone). Medical substitute Steven Motlop was activated at quarter-time to replace Duursma.

In the second term, they had key defender Aliir Aliir checking a right ankle crunched after an aerial contest with Brisbane wingman Mitch Robinson. All-Australian Aliir's exit for the last 15 minutes the second quarter left Trent McKenzie to deal with the growing threat from Brisbane key forward Joe Daniher, particularly in the air.

In the third quarter, it was midfielder-forward Connor Rozee hobbling to the bench - and into the medical rooms. By time-on of the third term, Port Adelaide was demanding more and more time on the field from players finding no access to the interchange bench.

In the last term, with scores level and 12 minutes to play - just when Port Adelaide needed stability in defence - it was McKenzie on a stretcher with a left-knee injury after an awkward landing from a marking contest.

Aliir returned after half-time to counter Daniher while the Brisbane forward was left to forget his error of playing on - with a handball - after a towering mark 10 metres from goal while the timekeepers moved their hand on the red button of the siren. But the challenging assignment of marking Daniher remained for a while with McKenzie, who beat Daniher in their first two marking contests of the third term.

The more fascinating match-up in the Port Adelaide defence was the choice of Ryan Burton - with back-up from Lachie Jones - for the demanding assignment of containing Brisbane livewire Charlie Cameron. While Daniher emerged as a threat with four goals, Cameron did not score until late in the game - after being paid a contentious mark - to restore Brisbane's 12-point advantage with five minutes to play.

Port Adelaide led by four points at half-time - its best result against Brisbane since 2017 when it had a 15-point advantage at Adelaide Oval. Since then, Port Adelaide has sunk to Brisbane on half-time margins of 38 points last year, 29 points in 2020, 44 points and 17 points in 2019.

The difference this time? That all-telling key performance indicator of contested ball in Port Adelaide's favour, 71-64. And Port Adelaide averted another blitz from the Brisbane midfield by winning the centre clearances 6-4 while Willem Drew again proved his shadow is capable of testing more and more of the game's stars.

Despite Brisbane highlighting the contested figures on its team whiteboard at half-time, Port Adelaide did not wilt. The contested-ball (107-99) and centre-clearance (10-7) advantages held at the last change when Port Adelaide had extended its lead to 15 points and was holding accuracy (9.7) on the scoreboard.

At the end, a Brisbane team that was challenged to respond did - and fiercely. The numbers tell the final story. Brisbane had won the contested possessions (141-139) and the clearances (42-39).  

Port Adelaide has vowed to learn from its mistakes - rather than be weighed down by recent failings. For three quarters, it was delivering a strong first impression at a venue that has tormented visiting teams since Brisbane's revival as a top-four team under Chris Fagan.

Port Adelaide left the Gabba in pain, and as another scalp for an impressive Brisbane unit that has lost just two of its past 31 games at home.

PORT ADELAIDE AT BRISBANE

PORT ADELAIDE    1.1      5.4     9.7   10.9 (69)

BRISBANE                2.2     4.6     6.10  12.9 (80)

BEST - Port Adelaide: Houston, Burton, Boak, Wines, Butters, Byrne-Jones.  

GOALS - Port Adelaide: Houston 2, Amon, Boak, Drew, Georgiades, Marshall, Motlop, Powell-Pepper, Rozee. 

INJURY: Xavier Duursma (left collarbone), Robbie Gray (right knee), Aliir Aliir (right ankle), Trent McKenzie (left knee).

MEDICAL SUB: Steven Motlop (activated at quarter-time for Duursma).

NEXT at Adelaide Oval v Hawthorn on Saturday night (7.10 start).