SCARS? The therapists - and nagging pundits - can retreat from Alberton (and quickly). Port Adelaide has proven it has no lingering torment from the Western Bulldogs and that disastrous AFL preliminary final at Adelaide Oval seven months ago.
Port Adelaide is now 3-5, on a momentum-building roll with three consecutive wins with this 17-point win against the 2021 AFL runner-up being the best of the hat-trick. And Ken Hinkley's squad should be now free at last of the seemingly never-ending questions about mental scars from a nightmare last September.
Teams with baggage do not play composed and assertive football.
MG Fans MVP: Who caught your eye against the Bulldogs?
Energetic (even after being engaged in a demanding one-point game in the northern tropics six days earlier). Disciplined (regardless of some bizarre umpiring calls that will be hard to explain on review). Eager for the contest (even if the trusty barometer of contested possession favoured the Western Bulldogs 130-126). In control and confident in moving the ball ... rather than increasingly controlled by the opposition denying Port Adelaide the ball.
Such qualities are not shown by a team burdened by a result that supposedly leaves mental scars.
The dialogue of Port Adelaide - and its part in this year's wild ride to the final eight berths to AFL finals - will take a very different tone this week, more so if All-Australian key forward Charlie Dixon makes it through his SANFL comeback match at Alberton on Saturday.
Not that it will be easy to move the magnets on the whiteboard to return Dixon to the goalfront when Greater Western Sydney recruit Jeremy Finlayson and fellow go-to forward Todd Marshall are growing in their understanding as a tandem. They finished with five combined goals - three from Finlayson who could have had five again.
The start was always going to be telling for so many reasons and to many of those wanting to see just how "damaged" Port Adelaide would be in seeing its preliminary final conquerors face-to-face for the first time since September 11 last year.
Port Adelaide again, as it did against St Kilda, gave up a 14-point lead and needed Robbie Gray to open the scoring with a set-shot goal in the 16th minute. The eight-point gap at this moment was a stark contrast to the 32-point deficit at the same time in the preliminary final.
And this time it was Port Adelaide with the quickfire succession of unanswered goals - four of them: Gray, Steven Motlop (from the south-east boundary pocket), Finlayson from the other pocket and milestone man Sam Powell-Pepper from the goalsquare on four consecutive set shots that had Port Adelaide leading by 10 points early into time-on.
It was two points in Port Adelaide's favour at quarter-time (vastly different to the 37-point deficit from the preliminary final). Five goals with one non-scoring miss by Finlayson (rather than 1.1 at quarter-time) from nine inside-50 entries made the Adelaide Oval scoreboard look better for Port Adelaide fans than at any time during the preliminary final. Some time has passed since Port Adelaide was so accurate and so efficient inside the 50-metre forward arc.
The need for new, varied methods of delivery to a new-look attack - without the contested marking of All-Australian Dixon - was answered. Even so, Marshall made an impression with his stronger marking in packs. He finished with eight marks - four contested, a career-best figure.
It was not so powerful on the scoreboard during the second term when Port Adelaide controlled the pace of the game, but was not fully rewarded for its patient approach to the goalfront. The 11 inside-50s at the northern end during the second term generated 2.4 that includes Motlop hitting a goalpost at the northern end and masks Willem Drew putting a set shot from a free kick on the north-west boundary pocket out-of-bounds on the full.
Those goalposts at the northern end were certainly a nuisance during the last term when each of Finlayson, Motlop and Wines rattled the white aluminium poles while Port Adelaide was looking for that lucky (but elusive) 13th goal that would scar the Western Bulldogs. The 0.6 in the last term denied Port Adelaide a more forceful response to those wanting to roll in the pyscho-analysts at Alberton.
The scoreboard repeatedly read so much better than seven months ago.
It was a four-point lead Port Adelaide held at half-time (rather than the 58-point shortfall to the Bulldogs halfway through the preliminary final); 24 points (rather than 58) at three quarter-time ... and 17 points at the end (delivering four valuable premiership points more so than any revenge for those 71 points in last year's painful finish to an unfulfilled season). Remarkably, the forward with the dedicated approach to his goalkicking - 20-year-old Mitch Georgiades - is struggling with his conversion, both at set shots and on the run. He finished with 0.4.
It was different at the start.
Port Adelaide's opening centre-bounce rotation continued with the new look offered with four-game ruckman Sam Hayes and the pairing of 2018 draftees Connor Rozee and Zak Butters with Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines. Willem Drew, whose name featured in so much of the post-game debate from the preliminary final on Port Adelaide's midfield match-ups, again started on the bench - and entered the game from the third centre bounce in a rotation that included former captain Travis Boak.
The Western Bulldogs won the first four centre clearances - and this was as the only red flag seen in this critical battleground that defined last year's preliminary final. The Bulldogs led centre clearances 7-2 at quarter-time after finding greater resistance from the harder bodies of Wines, Boak and Drew and at half-time was 9-5 while Hayes commanded the hit-outs, particularly with his strong positioning and deft touch at centre bounces. That four-clearance lead from the start of the game was still the difference at three quarter-time when the count was 12-8 and at the end of the game with 13-9, signalling Port Adelaide was on even terms with the much-admired opposition engine room led by Jack Macrae in the absence of Marcus Bontempelli.
Hayes finished with 37 hit-outs, 12 at the centre circle while Port Adelaide won the ruck counter 40-21.
Powell-Pepper, in his 100th game, again worked as a makeshift ruckman and a dangerous goalscoring option around tall forwards - both in space and in marking packs. He finished with two goals - and one hit-outs.
The match marked two milestones with Xavier Duursma gaining a recall - for his 50th AFL game - on Friday morning when fellow wingman Kane Farrell had to withdrew by COVID protocols. Lachie Jones became the medical substitute.
Port Adelaide's need for the substitute was triggered by defender Riley Bonner landing awkwardly on his right ankle - and hobbling off the field while assisted by trainers - during the third term.
PORT ADELAIDE v WESTERN BULLDOGS
PORT ADELAIDE 5.0 7.4 12.8 12.14 (86)
W BULLDOGS 4.4 6.6 8.8. 10.9 (69)
BEST - Port Adelaide: Boak, Finlayson, Wines, Rozee, Hayes, Byrne-Jones.
GOALS - Port Adelaide: Finlayson 3, Gray, Marshall, Powell-Pepper 2, Boak, Dumont, Motlop.
INJURY - Kane Farrell (COVID protocols, removed from selected 22 and replaced by Xavier Duursma); Riley Bonner (right ankle, substituted at the end of the third term).
MEDICAL SUBSTITUTE: Lachie Jones (activated for last quarter).
CROWD: 29,290 at Adelaide Oval.
NEXT: v North Melbourne at Hobart on Saturday.
