IF you could have chosen two Port Adelaide players to kick goals to win an AFL match, they would be Robbie Gray and Todd Marshall.

Gray with the AFL record of winning more games than any other player with late shots on goal. Marshall with the phenomenal 82 per cent conversion rate in goalscoring before this match at Perth Stadium.

In the last 157 seconds, Gray and Marshall missed the last two shots on goal - set shots - that would have given Port Adelaide the most remarkable win against Fremantle.

Instead, there is a gut-wrenching eight-point loss. Now it gets even tougher to keep the dream alive - and to have Port Adelaide mentioned with credibility as an AFL finals contender. It is more likely to carry the unsatisfying tag of being the team that shapes the race to the top-eight finals in September.

With the narrow loss, Port Adelaide slipped back into negative territory with its win-loss count turning to 7-8. And it remains 12th.

Port Adelaide lost control of the game - and struggled to roll the match agenda back to its way - from the start of the second term when Fremantle went on a four-goal surge while monopolising the Sherrin. Across 10 minutes it was: four goals, one behind and 27 disposals for Fremantle while the Champion Data statistics recorded just two tackles by Port Adelaide players.

Those 10 minutes ultimately made the difference.

There was the last-quarter surge built on key forward Charlie Dixon's early command of the ruck battles, giving the Port Adelaide midfielders - in particular Connor Rozee and Travis Boak - the chance to relive the 2015 AFL semi-finals when Port Adelaide overcame a four-goal deficit at half-time to stun Fremantle at Subiaco Oval.

Port Adelaide opened the last term with a four-goal rush that included two from Dixon and the first in AFL company from Jackson Mead to have the margin at nine points with time in favour of a win against the odds. It stayed at nine with 2:37 to play when Gray missed everything from a set shot from 30 metres.

It finished at eight when Marshall missed from a set shot from 35 metres with 1:28 to play.

This game had three critical themes after being all-square (26 each) at quarter-time.

1. Fremantle was completely dominant in the first 10 minutes of the second term, creating a defining 25-point margin.

2. Port Adelaide was desperate in the last term after staring at a 34-point deficit - and proving it will "never, ever give up". The five-goal charge might have finished at seven goals - and an extraordinary win.

3. Fremantle had the game on its terms during the third term when the territory battle was firmly in the home team's hands. Port Adelaide was forced to take more and more risks - and for 30 minutes repeatedly paid the price with turnovers for being rushed and squeezed at the contest.

Early in the third term there was a moment that summed up how Port Adelaide was suffocated by Fremantle's pressure game as soon as it crossed the line marking its forward 50-metre arc. Gray had a handpass from the boundary line smothered. And every Port Adelaide player who worked the spill - Miles Bergman, Ollie Wines and Sam Powell-Pepper - was harassed into a hasty and often incomplete disposal. Space and time was a luxury beyond Port Adelaide's budget.

And now the crunching of the numbers on the AFL premiership ladder tell of how Port Adelaide is living with no chance of finding an overdraft. At 7-8, Port Adelaide is now two wins behind seventh and eighth-ranked Richmond and Sydney. But this effectively becomes three wins considering Port Adelaide is 17 percentage points behind these two rivals.

With seven games to play, Port Adelaide effectively needs to win at least six (with the fixture carrying big tests against Greater Western Sydney, AFL premier and competition leader Melbourne, Geelong, Collingwood, Richmond, Essendon and Adelaide).

It is very, very tight now.

Port Adelaide ultimately did find a way to pierce Fremantle's well-known defensive systems. There were 12 goalscorers. There were goals from midfielders such as Karl Amon, Kane Farrell, Rozee and Boak, and even a defender in Ryan Burton.

Port Adelaide's attack found three goals from its permanent key forwards Mitch Georgiades (two) and Todd Marshall (one) while fellow tall forwards Jeremy Finlayson and Charlie Dixon dealt with the demanding challenge of muting Fremantle ruckman Sean Darcy.

Georgiades surely leaves his home city of Perth with a nomination for AFL mark of the year for his soaring leap over Fremantle swingman Brennan Cox just before the siren at three quarter-time. His set shot missed, leaving Port Adelaide 34 points behind.

Dixon was outstanding with his defiance in ruck - and his two goals that started Port Adelaide's last-quarter fightback. Neither was from a mark-and-kick scenario, as expected from a power forward such as Dixon. The first when pinned on the boundary line, repeating the opportunism that marked his 300th career goal last weekend at Adelaide Oval against Sydney. The second was when following up his centre-ruck work to be fed a handpass from Boak before kicking accurately from outside the 50-metre arc.

Ultimately, Fremantle will note how it won the hit-outs 51-22 with 38 from Darcy (while Dixon had 15 and Finlayson just five). And Fremantle also won the clearances, 19-10 at centre and 28-20 away from centre ruck.

But it was Port Adelaide that won the pressure game, forcing Fremantle into the game-high 73 turnovers compared with Port Adelaide's 67.

It is the start of the second term that defines opportunity missed for Port Adelaide.

That game-breaking second quarter began with an avalanche from the so-called purple haze of Fremantle led by Andrew Brayshaw, Jordy Clark and James Aish. The numbers in the first nine minutes and 42 seconds were totally one sided: Fremantle with 27 disposals, four goals and no Port Adelaide player credited with a disposal until vice-captain Ollie Wines took a mark in the defensive 50-metre arc.

It was a whitewash that ultimately carried a painful price.

And while Port Adelaide put a hold on the bleeding, never letting the margin extend beyond 40 points at time-on of the third term, it struggled to answer on the scoreboard. There was very little complete movement from defence to attack - and very little hold on territory inside the forward-50 arc. The contrast was perfectly summed up by the figures for possessions inside forward 50 during the second term - Port Adelaide 22,Fremantle 77.

The 25-point deficit from this Fremantle blitz remained 25 at half-time after Fremantle midfielder Careb Serong completed the six-goal charge with a stunning left-foot snap from a boundary throw-in in a pocket with four seconds to play.  

If Port Adelaide could take back 10 minutes ...

The opening was true to a game holding high stakes - Port Adelaide eager to stay in the race to September's top-eight finals; Fremantle wanting to hold a top-four berth.

Remarkably, the teams ranked at No. 2 (Fremantle) and No. 3 (Port Adelaide) for defence this season, opened with eagerness to hit the scoreboard delivering an eight-goal first term. But true to both teams being damaging in team defence, five of the eight first-quarter goals came from plays originating from the back half of the field.

Port Adelaide certainly was on from the start. Finlayson - again - won the first centre tap and followed up with the kick out of the centre square. Half-back Burton set the agenda for pressure football by keeping the ball in the forward half with the first tackle to be rewarded with a holding-the-ball free kick - and Burton had Port Adelaide's second goal when the inside-50 count after five minutes was 7-0 in Port Adelaide's favour.

There was an 18-point lead from the first three goals of the match - that included two goals from Georgiades with perfect kicks from set shots - before Fremantle scored in the 10th minute to start its momentum shift.

And there was no advantage after 16 minutes when Fremantle's advantage was at stoppages, particularly at the centre where Darcy was commanding the hit-outs against Finlayson and Dixon, and in moving the ball from inside to out. This was measured by Fremantle’s plus-29 count on disposals at quarter-time.

Port Adelaide will leave Perth on Monday morning with the game having claimed Rising Star nominee Lachie Jones for the injury list. He limped out of the game midway through the third term with a right hamstring strain.

Wingman Xavier Duursma was removed from the match 22 after reporting a quad-muscle concern. He was replaced by Miles Bergman while Steven Motlop started as the medical substitute.

For the record, the other father-son recruit on the field Jase Burgoyne (following Jackson Mead) finished the match - after starting on the interchange bench - with the statisticians recording 17 disposals in his AFL debut (with a 76 per cent disposal efficiency).

FREMANTLE v PORT ADELAIDE

PORT ADELAIDE      4.2    6.3        9.4         14.7 (91)
FREMANTLE             4.2     10.4     14.8       15.9 (99)

BEST - Port Adelaide: Wines, Boak, Dixon, Rozee, Byrne-Jones.

GOALS - Port Adelaide: Dixon, Georgiades 2, Amon, Boak, Bergman, Burton, Farrell, Marshall, Mead, Powell-Pepper, Rozee.  

INJURY: X. Duursma (quad, replaced in line-up by M. Bergman). L. Jones (right hamstring).

MEDICAL SUBSTITIUTE: S. Motlop (activated in the third term for Jones).

CROWD: 41,326 at Perth Stadium.

NEXT: Greater Western Sydney at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night.