EVERYONE loves Stuart Dew. He holds a significant spot in Port Adelaide's story on rising from the SANFL to the AFL - inaugural squad member, AFL premiership winner in 2004, club leading goalkicker in 2002 ... true team player.
Everyone wants Stuart Dew to succeed in his first stint as an AFL senior coach, now into its fifth year at Gold Coast. He has much admiration for building credibility in an AFL project in south-east Queensland, in the so-called Bermuda Triangle for sporting franchises.
Everyone hopes Stuart Dew will get - as Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley often says - all he deserves for his dedication and commitment to a demanding job in a project that needs to succeed for Australian football's national agenda.
But not this weekend.
For the first time since Gold Coast entered the AFL in 2011, a Port Adelaide-Gold Coast game can be billed as a play-off to September.
Gold Coast is 11th with a 7-6 win-loss record. Port Adelaide is 12th at 6-7. It is another of those classic "eight-point games". Gold Coast needs to win to avert the agenda focusing on previous promising campaigns that have fallen apart during the second half of the season.
"We have a plan now," says Gold Coast defender Jy Farrar. "The first thing was accepting that has happened in the past couple of years. Now, we are better - we have worked to a better program built by our high-performance managers. We are fitter whereas we would "gas out' midway through a season before. The Adelaide game last week (won by Gold Coast by 43 points with a late scoring surge) showed we did not stop running.
"We have a plan - and we are going to stick to it and hopefully finish the season strongly."
Port Adelaide must win to finally get its win-loss count even at 7-7 with a 7-2 record after a 0-5 start. The tightrope walk to September has Port Adelaide on edge. And it knows exactly how good Gold Coast can be, seeing first hand in the pre-season the growth Dew has nurtured with a team finding consistency - and strength with its work around stoppages.
"They are 5-1 in their past six games. Defensively they have been really good. Their contest stuff - as we found out in the pre-season - is at an improved level," says Hinkley. "They are a big final-eight contender."
It's a big game - something that has not been said too often about Port Adelaide-Gold Coast matches.
MORE THAN JUST HIT-OUTS
JARROD WITTS is 209-centimetres tall and weighs 111 kilograms. The Gold Coast co-captain is one of the AFL's most-dominant ruckmen, perhaps the All-Australian ruckman of AFL Season 2022.
Jeremy Finlayson is 197-centimetres tall and tips the scales at 94 kilograms - and is Port Adelaide's chosen lead ruckman for this game in the absence of the experienced Scott Lycett and mid-season rookie draftee Brynn Teakle (shoulder injuries to both) and the non-selection of first-year ruckman Sam Hayes.
But Finlayson has the earthy attitude that when the ball is in the air, he will play tall - and when it is on the ground, he will play small. His follow-up work has been critical to ensuring whatever Port Adelaide loses in the hit-out count is not directly translated to the clearance ledger.
This was the theme that had Finlayson play a significant part in ensuring Port Adelaide won the clearances after losing the hit-outs to the Richmond ruck battery led by Toby Nankervis at the MCG a fortnight ago.
"Our focus is on clearances - and metres gained from clearances," says Port Adelaide forwards coach Nathan Bassett. "And how our ruckmen follow-up the ruck contest."
The long-running debate on how the raw count of hit-outs can be overstated today brings onto the agenda the career-best 69 hit-outs Witts won in round 23, 2019. Gold Coast lost the match by 72 points while the Greater Western Sydney midfield kept the gap on the clearance ledger at four (47-43).
"We play the percentages and don't expect the ball will be put in our position (when we play to makeshift rucks). I look back on my career and know we have had good ruckmen. But it has not been our 'one wood' - winning hit-outs or getting hit-outs to advantage.
"I think back to the days of Jackson Trengove. We had a lot of ruckmen injured and relied on our midfielders beating the opposition midfielders in the battle to the ball. It is not so much of a challenge for us (to play with under-size ruckmen); we have always thrived in that environment. Against Gold Coast with Witts, we - as midfielders - will have to be on our toes and not expect as many hits."
Port Adelaide vice-captain and Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines
MORE THAN KICKING GOALS
PORT ADELAIDE is shuffling its line-up to cover the loss of defenders Tom Clurey and deputy vice-captain Darcy Byrne-Jones by the COVID protocols.
Dan Houston is expected to move from the midfield to half-back.
Xavier Duursma comes off the medical substitute's seat to work in the midfield.
And Steven Motlop returns from the SANFL to play as a half-forward ... and with much misunderstanding of how his role is much more than scoring or setting up score assists. He is there just as much to stop the scoreboard ticking over.
"He gets up the ground and he gets in front of the ball," explained Port Adelaide forwards coach Nathan Bassett. "The opposition has to get past him. He helps the team defend. His measurements as a high forward - across the competition - are quite reasonable."
And often the work of the new AFL high forward - a role taken on by Motlop, Sam Powell-Pepper, Lachie Jones and now Mitch Georgiades at Port Adelaide - is not appreciated by the pundits.
"Look at Alex Neal-Bullen at Melbourne," says Bassett. "He has kicked two goals this year. Statistically, he is the worst for shots at goal in the whole competition. But he plays his role for his team. He gets up the ground. He helps them defend. He links up in chains - and he then puts some pressure on.
"You can judge the strength of a team by its high forwards. We were happy with Lachie Jones in that role last week. He had only five possessions, but the pressure that he brought was excellent."
THE PAST
OF the 13 games played for AFL premiership points, it is fair to say only two carry lasting memories - the first and the eighth.
The first - at Football Park on April 23, 2011 - is memorable for Gold Coast as its first win for premiership points ... and the club song being sung for the first time in victory with the aid of cue cards. "We are the suns of the Gold Coast sky ..." Gold Coast, after facing a 28-point deficit leading into the final term, won by three points with Port Adelaide forward Justin Westhoff missing a shot after the siren.
The eighth - at Jiangwan Stadium, Shanghai, China - on May 14, 2017 marked the first time an AFL match for premiership points was played outside Australia or New Zealand. Port Adelaide won by 72 points.
THE PRESENT
PORT ADELAIDE has a 12-game winning streak in AFL home-and-away matches against Gold Coast. The past five matches have been convincingly won by Port Adelaide - by 115 points at Adelaide Oval in 2017, 40, 38, 47 and by 50 points at the last outing at Carrrara this time last year.
Today, Gold Coast seems at its best since round 21, 2014 to challenge Port Adelaide. In the lead-up to that clash at Carrara, Port Adelaide was fifth, Gold Coast was equal seventh but officially ranked 10th by an inferior percentage to Adelaide, Essendon and Collingwood .... and the game was decided by nine points after Gold Coast jumped Port Adelaide at the start.
The match is memorable for Port Adelaide ruckman Matthew Lobbe having 56 hit-outs - and earning the three Brownlow Medal votes. Despite a 64-37 advantage in the hit-outs, the clearances were a tighter battle with Port Adelaide have just a plus-two differential (51-49).
"Gold Coast play tough footy. They are very good on the spread - their midfielders are very quick in moving the ball from inside the contest to outside.
"They play very similar to Sydney - not surprising considering their coach (Stuart Dew) is a former Sydney assistant coach. They defend one-on-one - and are very physical. They have improved how they come off (their men) to help in defence. And they surge as much as anyone ... but not quite as much as Sydney."
Port Adelaide forwards coach Nathan Bassett on opposition watch
THE FUTURE
IT is all about the short-term future - the race to September's top-eight finals.
Port Adelaide probably needs to win at least six (perhaps seven) of its remaining nine home-and-away matches to qualify for its third consecutive finals series - and sixth time in the past decade.
Gold Coast is looking for its first AFL finals appearance since entering the national competition in 2011. At 7-6, 11th-ranked Gold Coast is on track to pass its 2014 high mark of ranking 12th with a 10-12 win-loss count.
And in eight visits to Adelaide Oval - twice against Port Adelaide - Gold Coast has never won at the city ground. It also has never cracked the watershed 100-point barrier at Adelaide Oval.
BY THE NUMBERS
SYDNEY coach John Longmire admired the pressure the Port Adelaide players applied in last weekend's clash at Adelaide Oval. It is not a one-off theme in the Port Adelaide game.
"Their pressure was elite, particularly their tackle pressure inside forward 50," Longmire said after the 23-point loss. "To their credit, they put enormous pressure on us and we turned the ball over coming out of our back half.
"That's the sort of pressure you get in big games and from Port Adelaide."
Port Adelaide ranks No. 2 by the AFL statisticians’ "pressure factor".
Port Adelaide ranks No. 4 for conceding marks inside-50 - just 9.1 a match.
And Port Adelaide has out-tackled its opponents by an average count of 5.9 a game this season - No. 2 in the league rankings.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
BIRD SEED
(the little stuff that counts most)
Where: Adelaide Oval
When: Sunday, June 26, 2022
Time: 3.40pm (SA time)
Last time: Port Adelaide 12.9 (81) d Gold Coast 4.7 (31) at Metricon Stadium, Gold Coast, round 14, June 19, 2021
Overall: Port Adelaide 12, Gold Coast 1
Past five games (most recent first): W W W W W
Scoring average: Port Adelaide 96, Gold Coast 55
Tightest winning margin - Port Adelaide by nine points (56-47) at Gold Coast in round 21, August 16, 2014; Gold Coast by three points (104-101) at Football Park, round 5, April 23, 2011.
Biggest winning margin - Port Adelaide by 115 points (135-20) at Adelaide Oval, round 23, August 26, 2017; Gold Coast by three points (104-101) at Football Park, round 5, April 23, 2011.
By venues - Adelaide Oval (2-0), Football Park (1-1), Metricon Stadium (7-0), Jiangwan Stadium, Shanghai (2-0).
By States - South Australia (3-1), Queensland (7-0), China (2-0).
