PORT Adelaide will be thrown endless questions of that preliminary final in the Friday Night Football rematch with the Western Bulldogs. But senior coach Ken Hinkley doubts the most-asked query on the "mental scars" his players supposedly carry from that horror show is going away.
And as for revenge for that 71-point loss at Adelaide Oval last September ...
"We won't control that (dialogue)," says Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley whose focus is on scoring four premiership points with a 3-5 win-loss record.
"We will continually be questioned (because of the 0-5 start to the AFL home-and-away series). So we will focus on what we can control - our effort, day by day.
"We will let the questions come ...
"(Our answer is) to continue to build on our form. To narrow it down to one particular game - and put a full stop (on the questions from the preliminary final) - or get an answer on where we are at today is not right.
"We have to continue to build for the whole season. You have to stay in the moment and not get lost in judging where you are at now."
The external focus - and pre-game build-up - has a heavy focus on just how Port Adelaide has this week approached the preliminary final horror show against the Western Bulldogs.
The preliminary final is said to have left "mental scars" on Hinkley's players. So does the senior coach re-open those wounds?
"We review every game of every team we play," Hinkley said. "We look at the last time we played, the teams, the result ... and clearly we have done that this time. And we are expecting a much better result. But we also know the quality of the opposition.
"What went on six months ago will have very little to do (with Friday night's game), but we will not be ignorant - we will try to learn - of what went on (in the preliminary final).
"We do it every week. We present the opposition. We show when we played them last, the last two or three or four times and we also present their most recent form which we go through from the past three or four weeks.
"We can't take too much out of what happened six months ago; we have to look at current form," Hinkley added. "And that is about us - and them. We are both not in the positions - top-four - that we were in six months ago. Right now, we are not talking about the same two sides.
"It would be unfair on us - and the Western Bulldogs - to be spending too much time on what we were like (at the end of last season). We are both in a different position."
The preliminary final was virtually shot by the Western Bulldogs dominating the first 20 minutes of the first quarter for a five-goal head start on Port Adelaide. But false starts are not a one-off for Port Adelaide.
"We have not had our first quarters anywhere near the level we'd like them to be (since the preliminary final)," Hinkley said. "We're working on our first quarters regardless of the opposition. We are trying to turn them around as quickly as we possibly can. We are not ignorant - and we are not reluctant to change stuff or look at how we can improve.
"And that is not because it is the Western Bulldogs this week. We need to be better in first quarters."
The preliminary final brought extraordinary debate on Port Adelaide's choice of midfield match-ups against one of the league's best engines staffed by Marcus Bontempelli, Tom Liberatore and Jack Macrae. The debate on whether Hinkley should have used Willem Drew from the opening bounce to counter Liberatore raged for weeks.
"Our midfield is growing - and is different from three or four weeks ago. It is getting better; it has become younger (with Connor Rozee and Zak Butters); it has opportunity to improve," Hinkley said. "But it is a shared responsibility of the whole team, not just the one or two or three people everyone sees in the midfield.
"We look at centre bounce and say, 'Who is in the midfield?' Reality is, there are eight or 10 players who go through the midfield. There is with the Bulldogs."
Port Adelaide's midfield has retained Karl Amon, who was dropped in the lead-up to the round 5 clash with West Coast and handed a late reprieve by the loss through illness of Miles Bergman.
"Karl's form is building - and I am pleased for him," Hinkley said. "Whether it did or didn't need to happen for Karl (the wake-up call with his 'axing' at selection), he is getting back to the form we know he can play - and that is form that had Karl in the 40-man All-Australian squad last year. He is gaining momentum.
"And he is 100 per cent required (at Port Adelaide while options at other AFL clubs emerge in the free-agency market). Karl knows that."
Port Adelaide's selection - the match 23 with the medical substitute - will be confirmed on Thursday evening with the biggest question mark still lingering over key forward Mitch Georgiades. He went into the clash with St Kilda concerned by a calf niggle; he was subbed out of the match; and scans of the leg muscle have shown up more than first imagined.
"We've had a scan back that has shown some signals," Hinkley said. "We are hopeful, but it certainly is not a certainty. Last week, (the calf muscle) was a bit tight. We thought going in (against St Kilda) it was going to be okay. We now have some more medical imaging that suggests there is a little signal there, so we have to be cautious."
Hinkley declared it was "unlikely" Port Adelaide would change a winning line-up if Georgiades was confirmed fit. But there are more options emerging from an SANFL line-up that beat competition leader Glenelg at the weekend.
And, adds Hinkley, it may not be a "like for like" call at selection should Georgiades fall out of the attack. This puts versatile defender Lachie Jones in the frame after a strong performance in the SANFL.
"Conditions and (wet) weather might play a part in that," Hinkley said. "Lachie certainly is in the frame. if we needed to, we would be more than comfortable (recalling Jones)."
The preliminary final - with the build-up across a two-week break from a strong win against Geelong in the home qualifying final - brought into post-match debate Port Adelaide's preparation. This time, there is the other extreme of a shortened break between games and the notable conditions in Cairns at the weekend: Testing - and draining - from the heat and humidity, putting the Port Adelaide fitness team at work to recharge the players.
"We also had a six-day break and we had to fly back from Cairns," Hinkley said. "There are always some challenges (in the fixture). We have had four or five six-day breaks already. That is something we have planned for and we are ready for all that stuff.
"The conditioning boys have taken good care of what we needed to do from a training point of view. We had only the one main training session with the six-day break, but that is quite normal."
The preliminary final rematch brings the 100-game milestone for Port Adelaide forward and back-up ruckman Sam Powell-Pepper.
"It is a great story and I am really proud of Sam," Hinkley said. "And I am really happy for him. The key for Sam is he is playing his best footy he has ever played in his time at Port Adelaide.
"He has grown as a player, he has grown as a person. It is a great story and I know he will be incredibly proud of his achievement.
"Most careers have some challenges and Sam is no different. What you get proud of is how someone like Sam has kept an eye on what he needed to do to improve. He has been challenged a number of times and he is growing as a man and as a father and not just as a football player. I am really proud of him.
"Sam is a hard worker. A diligent, hard-working person. He wants to do his best. He has ultimate team care about him. He has made a couple of mistakes, but who hasn't on the journey of life? He has improved himself as a person and as a footballer. And I am so proud."
Port Adelaide's SANFL program will give All-Australian key forward Charlie Dixon his first competitive hit-out of the season, after two rounds of ankle surgery have kept the strong-marking go-to forward in the medical rooms since January.
"How good is that? The big fella will be back playing football at the weekend; we have had to be pretty patient, but it is great that he is starting to get going," said Hinkley who expects Dixon to play "large minutes" in a managed return. "Let's see what happens ..."
