It has beaten a top-four rival. It has finally beaten a top-four rival ...

But it is how Port Adelaide beat the Western Bulldogs - on a hit-and-run raid of west Melbourne on Friday night - that should resonate louder than the ending of the longest-standing doubt on Ken Hinkley's team.

Yet again, Port Adelaide clawed back a game working to the opposition's theme and then turned the script to its preferred way. For the third consecutive week, Port Adelaide fell behind - this time by 22 points in the first term and by 19 points at half-time - and found a way to win after scoring just one goal in the opening half.

Hinkley's men did it the hard way. But they did it.

So Port Adelaide will rank second with an impressive 17-5 win-loss record at the end of the home-and-away campaign. It will start the top-eight finals series with a home qualifying final at Adelaide Oval against Geelong.

There will be no noisy gorilla on Port Adelaide's back with almost every question posed during the build-up to the qualifying final being about the team's previously winless record against top-four rivals.

Rather, there should be recognition of a Port Adelaide squad of players who during the past three months have built telling momentum to the finals with a resilient attitude and effective blue-collar game.

They do make it hard for themselves at times. For the sixth time in the past seven games, Port Adelaide lost the first term on Friday night under the closed roof of the Docklands stadium. And this opening against the Western Bulldogs was the worst of the six with a 16-point deficit at quarter-time.

In the second term - after getting the game on its own terms by stopping the Western Bulldogs' piercing runs through space from a stacked half-back line - Port Adelaide locked the play in its forward half ... but failed to capitalise. 

In this quarter, Port Adelaide - led by the dominating work of the tireless Travis Boak (12 touches in this term) - turned the barometer in its favour with seven more contested possessions than the Western Bulldogs, eight more clearances and eight more inside-50s. But the scoreboard showed no meaningful gain. The scorecard recorded five behinds, two shots out-of-bounds on the full and one falling short while Port Adelaide was dominating the inside-50 count.

It was a poor return for intense effort - and would have deflated and frustrated any team lacking the resilience Port Adelaide has built into its character and game since the mid-season break.

They persisted. And they succeeded. You do get what you deserve.

The significant note in averting the Western Bulldogs continuing to impose its ways on the game was the assertive ruck work of Scott Lycett; Willem Drew taking on the assignment of challenging Tom Liberatore; and Boak and Ollie Wines working their tandem on Marcus Bontempelli.

At the back, captain Tom Jonas tightened the defensive unit, again leading by example by taking to every contest with an uncompromising tone. And even with Port Adelaide putting up stronger barriers along the channels to the Western Bulldogs' goalfront, Luke Beveridge's team was remarkably efficient in the third term - with four goals from just six inside-50s after Port Adelaide opened the quarter with three goals.

The last 10 minutes of this game proved how the oldest mantra of the Hinkley era - to "never, ever give in" - still holds true with Port Adelaide.
Western Bulldogs midfielder Adam Treloar's goal - from a set shot, to advance this score source to 5.1 against 3.5 - created a challenging 15-point lead with 10:04 left on the clock.

The response was Port Adelaide's best 10 minutes since the comeback against Collingwood for the one-point win at the MCG in round 10.
Wines brought it back to nine points.

Boak made it three.

And Robbie Gray gave Port Adelaide a three-point lead - the team's first lead after the Western Bulldogs had spent 95:32 in front.

By the ever-reliable barometer, Port Adelaide won the clearances (35-28), the contested ball (139-132) and squared the centre clearances 9-9 against a lauded Western Bulldogs unit led by Bontempelli.

The two-point win carries one sour note: the left-hamstring injury to Rising Star forward Mitch Georgiades during the third term. 

The concept of four tall forwards with Georgiades, Charlie Dixon, Todd Marshall and ruckman Peter Ladhams - trialled by necessity when Port Adelaide had most of its half-forwards on the injury list - is lost for at least 14 days.

There will be relief in the match committee room that those half-forwards are back to now cover for tall forwards.

And there will be delight at Alberton that Port Adelaide does not have to hear of its record against top-four sides this week. Rather, there should be recognition of a resilient team that has built the confidence - and know how - to work its way through problems in games that do not always roll to the Port Adelaide agenda. 

They have beaten a top-four rival. And if they can do it three more times, at least twice at home, the Port Adelaide players will be rewarded with a premiership played out in demanding and challenging circumstances.