SOMETIMES you just have to believe.

Like on Good Friday in 2019 - that night in Western Australia where Port Adelaide overcame a two-game losing streak, an in-form West Coast that had a 13-3 win-loss record at the new Perth Stadium and came up with a novel game to defy an opponent that was "owning" Ken Hinkley's crew with six wins from seven matches. "Dirty ball," they called it.

Now it is Easter Sunday, a day celebrated for the miracle of a resurrection that amounts to "new life".

And Port Adelaide needs all of the above for a win that would assume Biblical proportions.

As with Good Friday in 2019, no-one outside the battered four walls at Alberton would believe there is a miracle, let alone a simple win in a football game, on the cards this Easter Sunday. After all, Port Adelaide is 0-4 (for the first time since 2008), the opponent is on its home deck at the MCG - and Carlton is looking for its own rise from the ashes left from last week's loss on the road to Gold Coast.

So who could possibly believe in Port Adelaide this time?

The players do, says Hinkley.

"We are not going to stop (believing) because of the losses," adds Port Adelaide defender Ryan Burton, who will return to the MCG - where his AFL career began for Hawthorn on August 13, 2016 with a win against North Melbourne - to play his 100th senior national league game (and 53rd for Port Adelaide).

Technically, the curtain does not fall on any AFL team's season until the 11th loss is recorded in a 22-game home-and-away season. Sydney proved in 2017 that a 0-6 start does not end a campaign to reach the top-eight finals in September.

Can Port Adelaide overcome a 0-4 start? Even an unwanted 0-5 start?

"Of course we can," says Hinkley. "There is a long way to go ... but clearly (every loss) makes it harder; genuinely harder. But get things going, get things back together, get some people coming in (to the AFL line-up) ... and I am really optimistic about the people we are getting back this week.

"The Port Adelaide team of this week will have a bit of confidence about it."

Some belief.

SWINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS

A WISE man once declared, "Never look at the players sent to the grandstand ... they can't win the game from there."

So, for all the pain felt without All-Australian key forward Charlie Dixon and now premiership-winning lead ruckman Scott Lycett while this powerful duo recuperates from ankle and shoulder surgery respectively, the focus is on the gains:

ALIIR ALIIR, the All-Australian defender who - after just 25 AFL games at Port Adelaide since leaving Sydney - has become such a critical part of how Port Adelaide defends ... and rebounds from defence. He returns after four weeks on the sidelines after needing ankle surgery.

Port Adelaide's system of team defence also has appeared to crumble in Aliir's absence.

"You do miss All-Australian players," said Hinkley. "Aliir is a significant piece of our defence ... as is Charlie (Dixon) at the other end. Aliir is a special player in the way he plays for us. We do miss him. We don't hide from that.

"The opposition also knows that. So, they put a fair bit of treatment into Aliir too. That attention opens opportunities for other players. It is not just what Aliir does; it is how he helps other people do things."

There is no Lachie Jones (COVID protocols) to rebound from half-back, so either Dan Houston or Miles Bergman will swing out of the midfield to work in defence alongside Aliir.

ROBBIE GRAY, the one player Carlton certainly did not want to see back considering the scar he left on the Victorian-based club with his goal after the siren at the Gabba in 2020.

A refreshed Gray returns after dealing with the knock to a knee in the season-opener against Brisbane and the COVID protocols that extended his absence from the team to include the losses to Adelaide and Melbourne in the past fortnight.

The experienced match-winner gives substance to an attack that returns to the three-tall format with Todd Marshall, Mitch Georgiades and Greater Western Sydney recruit Jeremy Finlayson, who responded to his AFL axing by scoring six goals in the SANFL against South Adelaide at the weekend.

Sounder in defence. More potent in attack. Now it is up to the midfield - in particular the younger midfielders - to answer that challenge posed to them at the start of the year when Port Adelaide put on the agenda the need to demand less of former captain, ironman Travis Boak and now without the services of Brownlow Medallist Wines.

"Willem Drew. Karl Amon. Sam Powell-Pepper. Connor Rozee. Zak Butters. All those people we have talked about all summer, they are the ones who have to share the load," Hinkley said.

TALL ORDER

HE stands at 205 centimetres.

He works a frame that weighs 102 kilograms.

And he carries more than the usual focus that is on an AFL debutant.

Five years after being called by Port Adelaide at No. 47 in the AFL national draft, the highly touted Sam Hayes gets his moment on the big stage. He arrives with a fair bit already having been said while the Port Adelaide match committee was repeatedly asked: "Does Hayes play this week?"

Opportunity knocks by the long-term loss of Lycett, who will be on the sidelines for at least three months.

"We are really confident that Sam has had a great preparation to become an AFL player and an AFL ruckman," Hinkley said of his 2021 SANFL club champion.  

BAROMETERS

SO it is not just Port Adelaide that can be measured by the key performance indicator of contested possessions.

In the 3-0 start made under new coach (and former Port Adelaide senior assistant) Michael Voss, Carlton won the differentials on contested possession, clearances and inside-50. Very Port Adelaide.

Against Gold Coast, in suffering its first loss of the season, Carlton lost the differentials on these three indicators by 13, 16 and 16.

Notable in the new gameplan put together by Carlton is the way Voss has his players clearing the defensive 50 - his team is the most-reluctant of all AFL sides to use the centre corridor (just 8.8 per cent of Carlton's exit plays are through this direct channel to the goalfront).

At the other extreme is Carlton's work from centre clearances. It has the highest differential (11 points) for score from centre bounce.

MAKE IT COUNT

SOME numbers on the AFL statistical sheets do indeed tell a story. Such as Port Adelaide's attack where the targeted forwards have marked 15.6 per cent of the opportunities presented and scored on 14.4 per cent of the opportunities created. These figures are half the AFL average.

Not every number is bleak. Young forward Mitch Georgiades in ranked in the AFL top-10 (equal sixth) for contested marks, a theme much missed without Dixon.

"We have missed opportunities; we have not got it quite right going forward and some of the people in the front half have not been as good as we would have liked," Hinkley said. "But we are capable."

And that leaves the quote of the week to tennis great Bill Jean King:

"Champions keep playing until they get it right."

BIRD SEED

(the little stuff that counts most)

Port Adelaide v Carlton

Where: MCG

When: Sunday, April 17, 2022

Time: 1.10pm (SA time)

Last time: Port Adelaide 21.14 (140) d Carlton 5.15 (45) at Adelaide Oval, round 22, August 14, 2021

Overall: Port Adelaide 21, Carlton 13, one draw.

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

Scoring average: Port Adelaide 101, Carlton 88

Drawn game - Port Adelaide 15.19 (109) drew with Carlton 16.13 (109) at Football Park, round 4, April 16, 2005.

Tightest margin - Port Adelaide by three points (64-61) at the Gabba, round 7, July 19, 2020; Carlton by one point (104-103) at Football Park, round 23, August 31, 2013.

Biggest margin - Port Adelaide by 103 points (140-37) at Adelaide Oval, round 22, August 22, 2014; Carlton by 91 points (169-78) at Princes Park, round 6, April 15, 2000.

By venues - Adelaide Oval (4-0); Football Park (8-1-7); Princes Park (3-1); MCG (3-1); Docklands (2-4), Gabba (1-0).

By States - SA: 12-1-7; Victoria: 8-6; Queensland: 1-0.