PORT Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley expects to have vice-captain Ollie Wines cleared of any wrong-doing for his hit on Collingwood defender Tom Langdon.

Wines delivered a solid bump to Langdon in the opening quarter of the Power's 27-point victory against the Magpies at Adelaide Oval on Sunday night.

At first glance, the hit appeared to be late and high and will draw the attention of the match review panel.

However, in Wines' favour is the fact Langdon was able to play out the game and didn't suffer any serious injury.

The Power will be desperately hoping they have Wines available for Saturday's crunch game with fellow finals contender, the Western Bulldogs, in Ballarat.

"I don't think so," Hinkley said, when asked if he thought Wines had a case to answer.

"I've caught a half glimpse of it, it's a bump. I think Langdon was okay.

"I hope from Ollie's point of view there is nothing in it too much, but I'll let the people take care of that, that need to."

Magpies coach Nathan Buckley said Langdon wasn't injured as a result of the Wines hit.

"He's okay. He's a tough, young player," Buckley said.

"He dusted himself and kept going and he's fine."

The Power sprung a surprise by playing 199cm forward/ruck Dougal Howard in defence, giving the 21-year-old the crucial job on Magpies young gun Darcy Moore.

It was Howard's first senior game since tearing the ACL in his knee in round 13 last year.

Howard replaced Jack Hombsch in the Power's backline, but whether he stays there or moves up the ground remains to be seen.

"I think the jury's out with us a little bit because he's come back from the injury has made it easier to play down back, we've been a bit cautious with him from a knee," Hinkley said.

"What he's done when he's gone down there has shown us some real things that we like that we haven't got a lot of, that's clearly size and speed together.

"That helps us, I reckon."

Howard was one of five changes to the Power's side in the wake of last weekend's embarrassing 84-point Showdown smashing.

"When you come off the back of what we came off last week and we play a side (Collingwood) that hasn't lost a game in the last month, you come away with a 20-odd point win, it wasn't our most convincing, but I'm pretty pleased for the boys to respond and win a really important game in the scheme of things," Hinkley said.

"There's no doubt we weren't as clean or as polished around the contest as we would've liked.

"We turned some simple stuff into some hard stuff."

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