PORT ADELAIDE coach Ken Hinkley says his side will maintain its narrow focus on the week ahead, after keeping its finals hopes alive with a heart-stopping two-point win over Gold Coast in a pulsating contest at Adelaide Oval.

Hinkley’s side burst out of the blocks with the first three goals of the game but was unable to break away from a determined Suns outfit, holding on desperately to win 13.15 (93) to 13.13 (91) in front of a vocal home crowd.

The visitors booted three goals to one in a high-pressure last quarter when both sides missed several chances to seal victory, and the Port coach was just pleased to end up on the right side of the ledger.

“We should acknowledge that was a pretty good game if you weren’t in either coaches’ box,” Hinkley said after the game.

“We needed to win, they wanted to win. It was a cracking game of football when you can take a breath.

“Both teams had good form coming in. I think they might have been 5-1 and we were 6-2. The season is remarkable and the match-ups this weekend just proved it.”

Hinkley laughed that he and his Suns counterpart Stuart Dew would not have enjoyed the final term, as the pressure resulted in numerous turnovers and missed shots on goal.

Again the Power went in without a recognised ruckman, with forward Jeremy Finlayson starting in the centre square and acquitting himself well against man mountain Jarrod Witts.

Witts and star Suns midfielder Touk Miller threatened to turn the game on its head in the second term, forcing the Port Adelaide coaches to throw former Sun Charlie Dixon into the ruck and Willem Drew onto Miller.

While Witts and the Suns won the hit-outs (43-21 with Witts contributing 41 alone), Port won the clearances 43-42 including 16-13 out of the centre.

“Charlie Dixon was huge for us in the ruck,” Hinkley said. “I thought he was really big. Witts was having a good role in the outcome of the game and we just put another big person against a big person and they wrestled each other throughout the day… but I thought today was a call and a need for Charlie to be there and a physical presence more than anything else.

“We knew that there was an issue with (Touk) Miller was getting the ball based on Witts’ dominance. We made some adjustments. Our coaches did a great job. We put Drew to Miller and he did a great job to quell his influence for most of the second half – not all of it.”

Hinkley has previously been full of praise for Finlayson’s efforts in winning ground ball if not hit-outs as a ruckman but whether the makeshift ruck set-up continues remains to be seen, with the Port mentor hinting that regular first choice ruckman Scott Lycett is close to resuming after missing 11 games with a shoulder injury.

“I don’t think it’s our preference but it’s what we’re dealing with here. We’ve got Scott Lycett probably available next week, which will make it more of an interesting decision for us,” Hinkley said.

“He’s a mature player so we’ll make the call on what’s best for us and Scott. He’s got a lot of conditioning. The great thing when you do your shoulder is that you’re not lacking conditioning by the time you come back.

“Scott is not the most skilful player we’ve got out there but he’s a good competitor and that’ll give us good reason to think about him long and hard.”

Forward Orazio Fantasia made a successful return from knee and quad issues that have kept him out all season in the SANFL on Saturday and midfielder Zak Butters could also be in the mix for selection after just one week out with a knee injury.

After losing the first five games, Port Adelaide has now won seven of its last nine to be well in the hunt for finals football, but Hinkley said his side could not afford to look any further ahead than next Sunday’s trip to Perth to face Fremantle.

“We’ve stayed really narrow with our focus. That’s what we should continue to do. Stay in the moment,” Hinkley explained.

“You can’t start thinking about anything other than trying to win the next game because the competition will throw up plenty of strange things in the next eight weeks.

“(Our players) know their best footy can be at a really high quality. At 0-5 it was a pretty brave effort to hang in there. But we haven’t walked away from our opportunity.

“We’ve got next week to worry about. 7-2 doesn’t count next week and neither do the games we play after next week until we get next week done to the level we need to. Fremantle have been an incredible side all year so it’s a real challenge.”