CHARLIE Dixon is back. And now the challenge for the Port Adelaide line-up is to get the ball to another new-look attack while answering the lingering question of its strength in the contested game.
Port Adelaide's return to Adelaide Oval, to face Essendon, after a fortnight on the road (to Hobart and Geelong) is loaded with agendas -
DIXON returns for the first time since the home preliminary final eight months ago - and after two rounds of ankle surgery. The set-up around Dixon includes just two other tall forwards, Jeremy Finlayson and Todd Marshall - and all three offer the option of supporting novice ruckman Sam Hayes.
CONTESTED football again was the disturbing barometer of Port Adelaide in the 35-point loss to Geelong at Kardinia Park last Saturday - and in the predicted wet conditions at Adelaide Oval there is no other way to play.
IT is either 4-7 or 5-6 after this match when Port Adelaide will enter the mid-season bye.
Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley always expected intense interest in how the 23-man line-up would be viewed once Dixon successfully made it through his second SANFL match at the weekend. The question of playing all four tall forwards was answered with the removal of young forward Mitch Georgiades from the final line-up.
"We worked through the challenge of picking the best team that gives us a chance to win," Hinkley said. "That was the main thought.
"(Other than setting up the attack) our other challenge is our ability to support and back-up in the ruck. A couple of our forwards can do that better than Mitch Georgiades.
"Mitch, to his credit, has been playing pretty reasonable football. He has been getting plenty of shots at goal, but as a forward he has not been converting at the level he would like - and that is where we landed," added Hinkley. Georgiades has in recent weeks returned scores of 0.1, 0.4, 3.1 and 0.2.
"There was flexibility versus opportunity.
"And the hard one was the weather. I have (monitored the forecasts) since Monday this week ... wondering what is it going to look like. And then you are never sure. Sunday afternoon, you could get here (to Adelaide Oval) and it is okay. We factor in all those things - and do our best to pick the team for that time."
Hinkley is not dismissing the prospect of playing all four tall forwards this season - a theme he developed last year when ruckman Peter Ladhams was part of the attack.
"You do need to be mindful of the conditions," said Hinkley who is reading forecasts of up to 15 millimetres of rain and gusty north winds hitting Adelaide Oval at the 4.10pm start of this twilight match.
"There is no doubt that we think the development of Marshall and Georgiades in the roles they can play is significant for us - and that they can play in the same team together with Charlie and Jeremy if we have to."
Intriguing with the team sheets is the naming of Finlayson to lead the ruck and Hayes being on the bench - a theme that brought much external debate on whether Port Adelaide would pair a new-look attack with a new style of ruck rotations built on Finlayson, Marshall, Dixon and the eager Sam Powell-Pepper.
"We didn't finalise match committee until Friday morning (after the preliminary squad was submitted to the AFL on Thursday)," Hinkley said. "We put a squad up ... and too much is read into that stuff sometimes.
"If you left the team sheets with me, I'd be tricking you all the time.
"We needed the whole week to get to our final line-up for a Sunday game. And it is more difficult in current circumstances with (COVID) health and safety (protocols). We are never quite sure what is going to happen. So we always have a really flexible squad.
"Sam (Hayes) was always playing."
Defender Lachie Jones will be the medical substitute - but not out of sentiment because of his hand in designing the club's Indigenous jumper for the second part of Sir Doug Nicholls Round.
"Sentiment is not there," Hinkley said. "It is around what is the best team?
"We have to pick the best team - that is our challenge. We need to pick the best team to win because we are chasing the chance to get back in this competition (after a 0-5 start).
"The bigger story here is that Riley Bonner was coming back. Riley has been in really good form for us all year. He rolled his ankle (against the Western Bulldogs at Adelaide Oval in Round 8) when he was probably our best player on the night. He was never going to be out of the side. We want him back in the side.
"Lachie is a developing, young player. Riley is a bit more advanced in his career. It was more around what Riley can bring for us rather than what Lachie is developing - and he is developing well. We have an exciting young player."
Debate on the absence of wingman Xavier Duursma after his best-on-ground performance against West Adelaide in the Russell Ebert tribute match at Loxton on Sunday is answered by the Port Adelaide match committee wanting to see more than one encouraging performance.
"Xavier played really well ... and that was a great sign for us," Hinkley said. "He is growing back into some form.
"If you look at one game as a sample size, you'd say we saw most of what we want from Xavier last week. But Xavier has not been able to build some consistency at the moment. He had an injury at the start of the year in round one that put him back a long way. It has taken a bit of time to get his confidence back.
"What we would like to do is give him the opportunity to build more confidence before we put him back in the AFL. We know he can play AFL footy."
Hinkley left no doubt how the well-known barometer of contested football at Port Adelaide needs to stop swinging wildly to become a noted trademark for his team.
"It is a fluctuating form for us," said Hinkley in a week when Port Adelaide has dealt with the damaging numbers left on the statistic sheets from the clash with Geelong.
"It should not be - and we don't want it to be. We are developing some guys around the ball (with this season bringing more midfield minutes for tyros Zak Butters and Connor Rozee).
"When we talk about contested possession it is more than what most people imagine as the contest at stoppage. It is more than that. It is way more than that. It is the contest in a marking situation; it is free kicks; there are lots of things that go into contested possessions. Hit-outs to advantage is a contested possession.
"There is so much that goes into contested possession.
"We expect and demand more of that over the ground and we did not deliver on that last week."
The mid-season reviews of Port Adelaide's first half to the home-and-away series will read differently depending on the result of this match - 5-6 or 4-7.
"We have had to come from a long way back (at 0-5)," Hinkley said. "We have worked really hard and we have stayed really focussed on the now. We have done that all the way through. That is why our focus is playing well on Sunday night in round 11 - and let the result be from what we have focussed on. That is, our performance.
"We never wanted to be at 0-5."
Port Adelaide's midfield has worked to understand the needs of the Finlayson-Marshall-Georgiades attack - and now has to adjust to the commanding presence of Dixon in the goalsquare.
"It takes time - as we saw with the other three (Finlayson, Marshall and Georgiades)," Hinkley said. "Charlie is a pretty imposing figure to get back in your team. But he is coming back off a very long time out and we should not have too many expectations.
"So it is important that Todd Marshall and Jeremy Finlayson and all the other forwards share a lot more of the responsibility to help Charlie get back into the game. We know that Charlie will be a far better player in two or three weeks' time.
"We know that is going to happen because of his preparation. But we had to get him back in the team - we need to get him in the team and playing because we have a bye. Getting a game into Charlie is really important."
Essendon arrives at Adelaide Oval with a 2-8 win-loss count and having endured so much criticism that eventually there will be a response.
"I am wary of the competition (rather than just Essendon)," Hinkley said. "Always am.
"It is a terrible spot that I live in sometimes. There is not a game that I think is not a danger game or a risk game. I have to be at my absolute best and so do my players to win this game. That is how I treat every AFL game."
