PORT ADELAIDE cannot hide from the horror of its 32-point loss to AFL premier Melbourne at Adelaide Oval on Thursday night - or all the work and scrutiny that is to follow.
The statistical note of winning the second half, by outscoring Melbourne by four behinds (4.6 to 4.2), to avoid a complete collapse serves as a meaningful consolation. But the big questions posed just before half-time will overshadow the finish.
At 0-4, Port Adelaide has made its worst start to an AFL season since 2008 when the scars of a hefty grand final loss seven months earlier remained raw. Now the question of what a preliminary final defeat at home in September last year has done to this promising team will become more repetitive.
Waiting until the 23rd minute of the third term for its first goal of an AFL game rewrites the record books for Port Adelaide. But it reaffirms just how costly the absence of Charlie Dixon and Robbie Gray from the Port Adelaide goal front has become - and how some players are harder to replace than others, even when building a deep squad.
Such bruising notes are at the extreme to all that Port Adelaide had intended on a night when standing strong and firm against the national league premier would have sent reassuring signals to a frustrated fan base and a curious AFL world looking deeply at Alberton.
Port Adelaide was its own worst enemy so often with ball-handling errors, decision-making gaffes and a costly fade-out during the latter 15 minutes of the second term when Melbourne kicked five unanswered goals to end a tense contest by quickly crafting a 36-point lead at half-time.
For the first time since gaining promotion to the AFL in 1997, Port Adelaide completed a first half without a goal. This might have been different had midfielder Zak Butters not conceded a free kick after the siren in the goal square while key forward Todd Marshall lined up a set shot from outside 50.
The 0.5 at half-time marks Port Adelaide's lowest score in a first half since the 1.2 (8) against Collingwood at Football Park in round 20, 2011. Port Adelaide's (inaccurate) final score of 4.12 (36) avoided rewriting the club's lowest score in AFL company that remains 3.3 (21) from this 2011 clash with Collingwood.
Half back Dan Houston finally turned Port Adelaide's goal tumbler on the old scoreboard to 1 at 22:15 of the third term after taking a hand pass from Sam Powell-Pepper in the south-west pocket.
It was the smoothest movement in attack for a team that increasingly stumbled in setting up its forward sorties.
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The tell-tale sign of a team with eroding surety was noted 10 minutes earlier when key forward Mitch Georgiades became confused with his best option to breaking Port Adelaide's goal drought. From taking possession at the top of the 50-metre arc to running to the goal square, Georgiades lacked the confidence to kick - and his handball to team-mate Sam Mayes finished with Mayes' hasty kick at the top of the goal square being touched by Melbourne rival James Jordan.
Port Adelaide's second goal - at the 18th minute of the last term - was a stark contrast to the set play orchestrated by Houston and Powell-Pepper. Georgiades had to battle to get his boot to the ball bubbling at his feet after Marshall had kicked long to the northern goal square.
The third goal - in the 24th minute of the final term - was finished with haste but precision by the opportunist Steven Motlop and repeated by Motlop (on the handball assist of Marshall) for the fourth goal in the 29th minute.
Port Adelaide's mission to stand up to Melbourne's elite midfield was dented at half-time with Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines subbed out with nausea.
The curse against Port Adelaide's big men also deepened on Thursday night with lead ruckman Scott Lycett taking to the bench midway through the second term with concern for his right shoulder. He persisted, with a strapped shoulder, in an absorbing contest with All-Australian Max Gawn.
How Port Adelaide would present after the heavy disappointment of losing Showdown LI on a kick after the siren last Friday was answered very early. The spirit of this team that is under intense scrutiny was evident from the eagerness for the contest - as perfectly noted by the hectic pressure applied to the Melbourne midfielders who were pinned in a handball game in front of the SACA members' stand midway through the first term.
Captain Tom Jonas had set the example with his determination to put everything into every contest, particularly those in the air. His dramatic spoil - against the flight of the ball - to kill a Melbourne sortie at the Riverbank end in the 11th minute of the second term underlined the skipper's clear intent.
At that stage it was a five-point game with only one goal scored by both teams across 40 minutes of tense football. But the resistance led by Jonas was at its limit - and being tested by a lack of scoreboard presence, ball-handling errors and turnovers when Port Adelaide slipped or mistimed their kicks. During the next 15 minutes, Melbourne took this lead to 36 with an unanswered run of five goals from Bayley Fritsch, Tom McDonald, Jack Viney, James Harmes and Ed Langdon.
Port Adelaide again worked the tandem of Marshall and Georgiades as the major targets inside-50, along with smaller and very active Mayes around the goal square - and often in space at the top of the goal square. (Mayes even took up the challenge of rucking against Melbourne premiership captain Max Gawn, despite conceding 22 centimetres at a boundary throw-in in front of the old scoreboard during the second term).
Again (as in the home-opener against Hawthorn in round two) there was no goal in the first term, just three behinds - two from wingman Karl Amon and the other from defender Ryan Burton. The minimal efficiency from 16 inside-50 entries in the first quarter will bring more attention on the movement and leading patterns of the Port Adelaide forwards - and the delivery to these would-be goal scorers.
The absence of All-Australian key forward Dixon (by an ankle injury) denies Port Adelaide the towering target who can claim a contested mark when the ball is sent long and strong to the goalmouth to work over the opposition defensive screens.
The strength of the Melbourne set-ups arounds key defender Steven May does - as former vice-captain Hamish Hartlett noted on radio on Friday - require the Port Adelaide midfielders to "lower the eyes" to find opportune targets.
Port Adelaide's stocks of key position players took pre-game hits with the news of Dixon having more surgery on his injured ankle and much-battered defender Trent McKenzie falling out of the line-up with a knee injury. McKenzie's absence ushered Miles Bergman into the 22 for his first game of the season, after recuperating from off-season shoulder surgery; and the rise to Port Adelaide ranks of former North Melbourne vice-captain Trent Dumont as the medical substitute.
PORT ADELAIDE v MELBOURNE
Port Adelaide 0.3 0.5 1.8 4.12 (36)
Melbourne 1.3 6.6 9.7 10.8 (68)
BEST - Port Adelaide: Jonas, Clurey, Drew, Boak, Burton.
GOALS - Port Adelaide: Motlop 2, Georgiades, Powell-Pepper.
INJURY - Trent McKenzie (knee, replaced in line-up by Miles Bergman); Wines (nausea).
MEDICAL SUBSTITUTE: Trent Dumont (activated at half-time for Ollie Wines).
CROWD: 23,058 at Adelaide Oval.
NEXT: Carlton at the MCG on Easter Sunday.
