PORT ADELAIDE cemented a finals berth a few weeks ago and a top four position on Saturday evening with its ruthless win over Carlton but coach Ken Hinkley says there are still some boxes to tick before his side hits the major round.

The Blues came out with “some energy”, buoyed by the 300-game milestone of retiring club great Marc Murphy and held a 23-point advantage in the second quarter, with Murphy and Sam Walsh generating plenty of ball going their way.

Hinkley said he challenged his midfielders to be more accountable in the second quarter and got a good response from the whole side, as it piled on the last 19 goals of the game to win by 95 points – 21.14 (140) to 5.15 (45).

“It was a pretty strong performance by the end,” Hinkley said. “I don’t think you could wish to be in too much more control than we were able to get out of that game.

“But let’s be fair to Carlton. They couldn’t have had much more of a worse week when it came to injuries and who was coming in and out of their side. Almost every hour there was another player having to pull out of their side so it played out the way we would hope it would in the end.”

The Blues had a difficult build-up, flying into Adelaide with a red eye flight and waiting around in the indoor cricket nets at Adelaide Oval for several hours due to tough COVID-19 measures imposed by SA Health.

They also lost guns Harry McKay and Liam Jones to injury during the week, along with co-captain Patrick Cripps just hours before the bounce.

Having turned the 23-point deficit into a 15-point advantage in 18 second-quarter minutes, Port piled on the pain with a nine-goal last quarter, limiting the Blues to just six behinds for the remainder of the game.

Port had 12 different goal scorers with tall forwards Charlie Dixon (four goals), Todd Marshall (two), Mitch Georgiades (two) and Peter Ladhams (one) combining for nine goals, and small forwards Orazio Fantasia (three goals), Robbie Gray (two) and Connor Rozee (one) six, showcasing the side’s potency.

“Clearly from a performance point of view, we think our talls can work,” Hinkley said. “We also think our smalls can also do it together, so we think it gives us great options going through the next four or five weeks hopefully, and we can pick the side based around the opposition we play and the performance we need.

“There’s no doubt our forward line is potent but we haven’t had them all together much. We’ve had a lot of players missing particularly in our smalls and we’ve had to manufacture (the set-up) particularly with our talls.

“There were times during the season where we had five or six of them out and we had to use the whole squad then and we did it pretty well to put ourselves in the position we did.

“We’re at a stage where we’re liking the tall options and we know we can benefit from some of the boys at ground level too so it’s a really nice position.”

Ports win means it could be playing for the minor premiership next week against the Western Bulldogs.

Despite the importance to the final make-up of the competition’s top-four, Hinkley said his side did not speak about building percentage as the game progressed and instead focussed on being consistent.

“We just spoke about being reliable and playing the same way the whole way,” Hinkley explained.

“At the end of Round 23 I’ll look at the ladder ... and recognise the next challenge, but as I said ten or 12 weeks ago, let’s not worry about it until the end of Round 23 because so many things can change.

“We’ve worked really hard for 22 rounds and 21 games to put ourselves in this position. It’s always going to be challenging, it’s never going to be perfect all the way through the year.

“It’s a test of your stamina and your endurance and commitment to get through 22 games in good shape. There’s a lot of sides that would love to be where we are near the top of the ladder but you’ve still got to maximise your opportunity from here.”

With Steven Motlop making a successful return through the SANFL following ankle surgery, Sam Powell-Pepper finding form for the Magpies and a chance that Trent McKenzie could also be available after missing out with a tight hamstring, Hinkley said he had a couple of concerns to work through before finals.

The first is whether Scott Lycett will be able to face the Dogs after being subbed out with a knee complaint. He will have scans during the week to check for any damage following a collision in the second quarter.

The second concern is rectifying his side’s slow starts.

“We did that last time we played (the Western Bulldogs) at Adelaide Oval where we gave them, or they took, a five or six goal head start on us and it took a lot of work to get back in to that game,” Hinkley said.

“We just can’t afford to let that happen to us against the best teams in the competition.”