TOM Jonas will sleep easier tonight. The Port Adelaide captain took his unit into "battle" vowing to achieve his very public objective - and they won, just as he vowed five days earlier.

"We will win," Jonas had said on Tuesday.

And they did win. Quite assertively too, by 84 points at Adelaide Oval with 28,587 in the seats and on the mounds at the city ground. For the first time in 239 days Jonas has led his players to the changerooms for the belting out the Port Adelaide club song with the sweetness of victory.

Jonas and his men did themselves proud in overcoming West Coast - and probably the threat of self-doubt from repetitive defeats - in a home match that means so much to the Port Adelaide Football Club as a tribute to the Anzacs.

A week of intense internal scrutiny - with as much heat as anything the team has endured from the pundits and critics in the previous five weeks - ends with a much-needed victory and the chance to change the doomsday script that has overshadowed Alberton for more than a month.

This confidence-boosting win might mark a turning point in a season that is still with 16 home-and-away games to play.

Described by West Coast premiership coach Adam Simpson as "probably the best 0-5 team in the history of the competition", Port Adelaide finally ended a five-game losing run and a five-match losing streak against the West Australian club at home - and scored its first win against West Coast at Adelaide Oval.

The seven-goal blitz in the second term that broke the duel was Port Adelaide's most-productive quarter in a season when delivery to attack and potency inside-50, particularly with marking targets, has been a long-running topic. Greater Western Sydney recruit Jeremy Finlayson delivered his best return in Port Adelaide colours - five goals; his fourth five-goal haul in 70 AFL games.

This game was just as much about Port Adelaide's long-term future as a critical moment in 2022.

Opening bounce: Second-game ruckman Sam Hayes, Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines, Connor Rozee and Zak Butters. This is fast-forwarding a future vision that was not expected for some time but forced with the absence of lead ruckman Scott Lycett (who had shoulder surgery this week) and the need for new energy around centre stoppage.

Hayes was dominant in a ruck contest - with the game-high 48 hit-outs - against novice West Coast rivals, first-game ruckman Luke Strnadica and 13-game Bailey Williams. But it was his field play, the "work in progress" chapter in his development program, that notably stepped up this week with extra sharpness around ground contests.

Butters and Rozee, the midfielders who sparked Port Adelaide's nine-goal, second-half fightback against Carlton last week, continued from where they left off at the MCG on Easter Sunday.

Rozee has snapped out of his rough patch - and the rust from his injury riddled 2021 campaign - by chalking up 32 disposals, 16 as contested possessions and eight from winning clearances. He was perfectly rewarded with the Peter Badcoe VC Medal.

All three of Port Adelaide's tall forwards scored goals - Marshall with a career-high five, including three in the match-breaking second term; Georgiades with one; and Finlayson with his first five-goal haul since round 14 last season, against Carlton. Marshall's five equals his five in the Showdown.

Port Adelaide's way of appearing to make the game difficult for itself continued with another tortured opening. The first goal was not until the 22nd minute - after half-forward Sam Powell-Pepper spilled a mark while falling to ground, leaving Georgiades to snap. This was the only goal from 12 inside-50 entries while there seemed more promise with Georgiades and fellow go-to forwards Finlayson and Marshall taking marks inside the forward arc.

It is feast or famine with Port Adelaide's scoring this season. One goal in the low-scoring first term was followed up by a seven-goal rush to move a scoreboard deadlocked at quarter-time (eight points each) to a 43-point lead for Port Adelaide at half-time.

It took just 1:40 of the second term to work the second goal in a chain of precise kicks around the boundary to the face of the old scoreboard where Travis Boak and Finlayson nailed a neat one-two punch of the West Coast defence. And 6:08 for the third with Marshall converting a set shot from outside 50; 7:26 for the fourth from Robbie Gray again proving he has the golden slipper for goals in crowded space; 12:41 for the fifth with Kane Farrell marking his return to the AFL by punishing West Coast captain Shannon Hurn on a turnover with a perfect left-foot snap; 15:06 for the sixth with Marshall on a set shot again; 17:44 for the seventh from Marshall again; and 25:05 for the eighth from recalled wingman Karl Amon.

The seven goals marked Port Adelaide's best second term against West Coast since scoring eight in the 35-goal shoot-out at Subiaco Oval in Perth in round 5, 2008 (a game also won by Port Adelaide).

And by the end, as highlighted by Sam Powell-Pepper's snap during time-on of the last term, goalscoring was a treat rather than a chore for the Port Adelaide players. That goal sent the tumblers on the Adelaide Oval scoreboard into the triple figures for the first time since Port Adelaide scored 140 points against Carlton in the home-and-away season closer last year.

A team that staggered to find space during the first term was gliding in the second to create - with greater speed - critical openings inside the 50-metre forward arc. The only scare during the decisive second term was All-Australian defender Aliir Aliir, who was in his second game back from ankle surgery, hobbling on a sore ankle just before half-time. He took the field from the start of the third term, not surprisingly soundly testing his feet in the warm-up, before resuming his match-up with Jack Darling.

The latest injury concern is with Gray, who again - as in the season-opener against Brisbane - is troubled with pain in his right knee. He went to the bench during the time-on period of the third term to bring the medical substitute, Lachie Jones, into play.

In the 36 previous matches between the club's Port Adelaide's defence had never before held West Coast to just one goal at half-time. West Coast's 1.8 at three quarter-time is the lowest the West Australian club has scored against Port Adelaide since 2001 at Subiaco Oval. The final score of 4.9 (33) rewrites the record of 6.5 (41) kicked in the shortened games of Season 2020.

The most-absorbing duel was with Tom Clurey, a man who savours classic match-ups with key forwards, taking on West Coast spearhead Josh Kennedy - and holding the two-time Coleman Medallist to just 1.2. And that lone goal, three minutes into the last term, came when Clurey left the match-up to challenge Darling on the boundary line.

Selection was changed before the game with the recall of midfielder Karl Amon to replace the ill Miles Bergman. Amon's reprieve from the medical substitute's seat and the SANFL was followed with a 25-disposal game - and a significant "metres gained" figure of 644.

Amon's demotion at selection on Thursday allowed for the return of wingman Kane Farrell, less than 10 months after reconstructive surgery to his right knee. Farrell had 17 touches, covered both ends of the field with 47 per cent of his match time spent offering options for plays out of defence.

Umpire dissent did - as usual - bubble in the crowd but not on the field where, after a week of much debate on rule changes, there was no 50-metre punishment to any player for questioning a free kick.

Port Adelaide's match-won Anzac Round guernseys, inspired by the great Bob Quinn, are now available for auction, with all proceeds going towards the RSL's ANZAC Appeal.

PORT ADELAIDE v WEST COAST

PORT ADELAIDE     1.2   8.5  11.8   18.9 (117)

WEST COAST           1.2   1.4    1.8     4.9  (33)

BEST - Port Adelaide: Rozee, Houston, Wines,  Finlayson, Marshall, Hayes, Clurey.

PETER BADCOE VC MEDAL: Connor Rozee.

GOALS - Port Adelaide: Finlayson, Marshall 5, Amon, Farrell, Georgiades, Gray, Houston, Motlop, Powell-Pepper, Wines.

INJURY - Robbie Gray (jarred right knee, subbed out in third term); Miles Bergman (ill) replaced in selected line-up by Karl Amon.

MEDICAL SUBSTITUTE: Lachie Jones (activated during third term for Gray).

CROWD: 28,587 at Adelaide Oval.

NEXT: v St Kilda at Cazaly Stadium, Cairns on Saturday, April 30.