SHOWDOWNS, they say, defy form. That is a relief considering Port Adelaide is 0-2 (as is the opposition) and coming off a damaging 64-point loss at home six days ago.

Showdowns, they add, ignore the rankings on the AFL premiership table. Port Adelaide has never entered a derby from a lower position, 18th. But the derby history written since 1997 is loaded with memorable Showdown triumphs against a higher-ranked Adelaide.

Showdowns, we all know, are determined by what happens on the day - or the night with this being the first Friday night AFL derby in Adelaide. So the last-quarter loss under duress at the Gabba in round one and the dismay from last Saturday's home defeat from Hawthorn should not cast doubts on what Port Adelaide must do in Showdown LI.

"The Showdown is always motivating," says Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley.

Usually, it is about bragging rights - the status of the best AFL team in town as Port Adelaide has stood for the past four Showdowns to command a 26-24 lead on the ledger.

"But this is more than the Showdown for us," adds Hinkley of an agenda built on extraordinary reactions to a 0-2 start to the home-and-away season, despite Port Adelaide having claimed minor premierships in 2002 and 2003 after the same false starts.

"We are motivated by the need to respond for what happened last week."

ATTACK, ATTACK

For the second time in less than a year, Port Adelaide has to be creative with its forward set-up.

In round 18 last season, Port Adelaide was short of small forwards - no Robbie Gray, no Orazio Fantasia, no Zak Butters, no Connor Rozee - for the away clash with St Kilda at the Docklands in west Melbourne. A new-look attack built on talls and spearheaded by the four-goal Mitch Georgiades won this match by 13 points.

Now there is no All-Australian key forward Charlie Dixon (ankle), again no Gray (COVID protocols) nor Fantasia (knee) and the lack of goals from the new triple tandem of Georgiades, Todd Marshall and Greater Western Sydney recruit Jeremy Finlayson has forced a refit in the forward-50 arc.

Marshall and Georgiades remain - and Sam Mayes and Jed McEntee return to the line-up. The last time McEntee was in the Port Adelaide AFL team was that round 18 clash last year when necessity demanded an inventive approach to attack.

DEFEND, DEFEND

Team defence was betrayed last week when Port Adelaide conceded 9.1 from its forward 50 to a Hawthorn team that played Adelaide Oval as if the ground was a vast expanse.

Hawthorn also scored 24 points from regaining possession from Port Adelaide kick-ins after opposition behinds - a figure that is not true to Port Adelaide's defensive work of recent seasons.

"Team defence," says Port Adelaide defence coach Chad Cornes, "has for the past three to four years been really, really good ... at a higher level (than most in the AFL).

"But for the first two games it has not been at the level we need.

"The contest - what is happening forward of the (defence) - must be better. We must be better at holding the ball inside our forward 50.

"And if we do lose the ball in that forward 50, the intensity and energy to find an opponent has to be there so we get back to that strong forward half football that we have been known for."

Port Adelaide is without All-Australian defender Aliir Aliir who, with his strength of intercept marking, has been a thorn in Adelaide's search for effective entries. His absence while he recovers from ankle surgery - and as fellow key defender Tom Clurey recuperates from knee surgery - demands team defence be restored to the maximum while Adelaide deals with its own issues of poor scoring.

CONTEST, CONTEST

And do it with clean hands will be a critical theme taken from the Monday review at Alberton where Port Adelaide noted the usual barometers of winning clearances and contested ball was betrayed by simple ball-handling errors.

Statistics proved to be meaningless numbers.

So the challenge is with the Port Adelaide midfielder - Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines, former captain Travis Boak and Karl Amon - to make their possessions count against an Adelaide unit that is drilled to be manic at the contest and is inclined to slow games by clogging space in the centre corridor.

Adelaide might - as its club legend Mark Ricciuto says - struggle to kick, handball and score goals. But Showdowns do ignore form, premiership ranks and recent games to leave coaches stoking a competitive tone from the competitors on both sides of the great derby divide.

BELIEVE, BELIEVE

Port Adelaide captain Tom Jonas is a pragmatic leader. As a defender he certainly - and at times to his detriment - plays without compromise.

At half-time of last Saturday's home opener against Hawthorn, Jonas walked to the Geof Motley race at Adelaide Oval - jeers echoing across the city ground while Port Adelaide stared at a 28-point deficit - with one clear focus:

"At half-time, there are still 60 minutes of footy to be played ... (our thoughts) are about how to rectify (the result); how to get yourself back in the contest."

Port Adelaide has 1600 minutes plus time-on to play in the 2022 home-and-away season. Eighty 20-minute quarters, starting with the first of Showdown LI in the premiere Friday night AFL derby played in Adelaide.

Catch-up football always is exhausting. But Port Adelaide has been here before - in 2002 and 2003 when 0-2 starts were converted to 18-4 finishes with minor premierships.

"When we walked off at full time (with a 64-point defeat) we knew we had disappointed a lot of the Port Adelaide supporters. We shoulder that disappointment ... it should burn with us as players.

"And it will drive us to be better."

Port Adelaide has never entered a Showdown from a lower ranking or with a poorer form line (0-2 equalling the winless start before the first derby of 2008) ... or with more questions of its own making. And yet it is the hot favourite to win Showdown LI.

This is not to say Port Adelaide has not been in a darker spot before a derby - like that record losing streak of 10 matches before upsetting the in-form Adelaide by 19 points at Football Park in round 17, 2010.

"We believe in this group," says Hinkley, "and we believe it will respond."

Showdown LI can make the start of a promising home-and-away campaign. But with at least 1600 minutes (plus time-on) still to play in Season 2022, the derby cannot make the end of the marathon to September.

THE BIRD SEED

(the small details that count)

Showdown LI

Adelaide v Port Adelaide, Adelaide Oval

When: Friday, April 1, 2022

Time: 7.50pm

Last time: Port Adelaide 7.13 (55) d Adelaide 7.9 (51) at Adelaide Oval, round 21, August 7 last year.

Overall: Port Adelaide 26, Adelaide 24.

Past five games: From the most recent, W W W W L

Scoring averages: Port Adelaide 87, Adelaide 90

Tightest margin: Three points, twice (Adelaide wins in Showdowns 39 and 45).

Biggest margin: Port Adelaide by 75 points in Showdown 48; Adelaide by 84 points in Showdown 43.

By the venue: Adelaide Oval, Port Adelaide 7, Adelaide 8; Football Park, Port Adelaide 19, Adelaide 16.

SHOWDOWNS keep delivering. The 51st derby adds to the game's extraordinary history with a kick after the siren sinking Port Adelaide by four points - and leaving Ken Hinkley's team still searching for its first win of the season.

Adelaide's latest recruit, former Sydney player Jordan Dawson, kicked the winning goal after the siren at Adelaide Oval's northern end after stepping up for the free kick awarded - on high contact from Port Adelaide forward Sam Mayes - to Lachlan Murphy.

Dawson not only sealed Adelaide's first victory of the season - and first derby triumph since May 2019 - but he also claimed the Showdown Medal that seemed destined to former Port Adelaide captain Travis Boak for his 28-touch game.

Dawson's kick from 40 metres will go into Showdown folklore. It also denied Port Adelaide key forward Todd Marshall the chance to be a hero after delivering a career-best five goals.

And it will sting Port Adelaide for again being wasteful at the goalfront as underlined by its 13.14 scoreline - while Adelaide made the most of fewer goalscoring chances with 15.6.

The first Friday night AFL derby in Adelaide certainly did live up to the reputation developed in the previous 50 Showdowns of a match that is played in the moment - and with a full understanding of the consequences of the result. Leads did not come with any comfort for Port Adelaide.

FANS MG MVP | Vote for your Showdown MG MVP

Adelaide responded to Port Adelaide's 19-point lead at quarter-time to bring the match back to two points with the first three goals of the second term. Port Adelaide put it at 16 at half-time, had it at just 12 at time-on of the third term and an uneasy 13 at the last change, despite eight more scores than Adelaide (including 2.5 in the third quarter).

Even after Marshall made it 19 points - with his fifth goal - to open the last term, Adelaide brought it back to 12. Showdowns do test the nerves ... right to time-on of the last term when Trent McKenzie's backwards mark against oncoming traffic at the top of the Adelaide goal square ensured Port Adelaide stayed 13 points in front (by a 1.7 advantage).

And it was just those seven behinds that separated the rivals with 4.43 to play when Adelaide tall forward Elliott Himmelberg made it a seven-point game - and then with his fourth goal it was one point with 3:40 to play.

The storyline of Port Adelaide's missed opportunities during the second half - when it scored 4.7 - was most painful on the last chance to keep the Showdown trophy for the 27th time. Boak, with a free kick and 50-metre penalty, missed from 30 metres. A two-point lead did not hold with 1:36 to play.

Not even McKenzie's courageous play - with another backwards mark in the last minute inside Adelaide's forward-50 - saved the game.

Port Adelaide's re-configured attack - with small and mid-size forwards such as Mayes serving as targets at the goalfront - did deliver more ... but not enough.

The pairing of Mitch Georgiades and Marshall - at the expense of Greater Western Sydney recruit Jeremy Finlayson - was not short of criticism, particularly the backing of Marshall after he managed just four possessions in each of the first two games this season.

Marshall's response at the goalfront with five goals - and his work in ruck to support lead ruckman Scott Lycett in his demanding duel with Reilly O'Brien - and Georgiades' two goals do stand as a fair response to all the pre-game debate.  

Marshall's previous best - four goals against Fremantle - dates to the season-opener of 2018.

Hinkley wanted an attack in which players took advantage of their "creative" licence. His forwards created spot fires to put Adelaide's defence in a state of anxiety.

First it was Mayes, playing his first AFL game since the close of the home-and-away season last year. He made all the experience of his previous 118 senior matches at Brisbane and Port Adelaide by often energetically putting himself in the right spots at the right time. And there will be much debate about the mark overturned against him - for holding Adelaide rival Brodie Smith - in the second term.

No-one was taking from Mayes the pack mark he grabbed like a vice at the start of the third term at the northern end.

Then there was Sam Powell-Pepper, who continued with the havoc that allowed him to score three goals last week. But ultimately there was not enough to extend the Showdown winning streak to five.

On a night when Port Adelaide had to deliver a response and make major corrections, the achievements were:

FIRST inside-50 entry finished in a goal, from Steven Motlop.

FIRST act of resistance to an Adelaide kick-in had the ball turned over for a boundary throw-in on the 50-metre arc.

FIRST statement of intent made by defender Trent McKenzie while Port Adelaide set the agenda for a physical derby in which every contest was true to the deepest meaning of the Showdown. Of course, there always is the risk of collateral damage from "friendly fire" as midfielder Zak Butters felt from team-mate Sam Powell-Pepper in time-on of the first term as they chased down a Crows rival from the ; spillage of a centre bounce.

STRONG start with the first five-goal opening since round 13 last season in the Thursday night clash with Geelong at Adelaide Oval. The 19-point lead at quarter-time was a re-assuring pointer on the lessons learned from the review of the 10-goal loss to Hawthorn at home six days earlier.

SHARPER defensive actions, such as wingman Karl Amon's reflex tackle of Ned McHenry at the top of the Adelaide attacking arc late in the second term that launched a rebound play finished by Marshall kicking his third goal.

Port Adelaide had six players in their first Showdown - Mayes, midfielders Jackson Mead and Jed McEntee, defenders Lachie Jones and Sam Skinner and medical substitute Martin Fredericks.

Mead made his first derby almost as memorable as that of his father Darren, the best player of Showdown I in April 1997. His willingness to compete for the contested and ground balls with head down over the ball; to stay composed and work across large sections of the ground bodes well for a young player who has had to wait for this moment in the AFL.

SHOWDOWN LI

PORT ADELAIDE          5.2       9.7        11.12     13.14 (92)

ADELAIDE                      2.1       7.3        10.5        15.6  (96)

BEST - Port Adelaide: Boak, Marshall, Wines, Lycett, Byrne-Jones.

GOALS - Port Adelaide: Marshall 5, Georgiades, Mayes 2, Drew, Frederick, Lycett, Motlop.

INJURY - Skinner (ankle - subbed out last term).

MEDICAL SUBSTITUTE - Martin Frederick (activated for last quarter to replace Skinner).

CROWD: 39,190 at Adelaide Oval

NEXT: v Melbourne at Adelaide Oval, Thursday evening