WHAT happens when two football teams try to play the same way, particularly when the playbook demands intensity at the contest?

Port Adelaide found at Bond University on Sunday a Gold Coast side that more than matched Lauren Arnell's team for appetite in contested football and pressure tackling.

Gold Coast put on the agenda the need to win the contests - and to "absorb" the pressure posed by the AFLW's hardest tackling team. And it survived these tests to give Port Adelaide an invaluable lesson on how to move the Sherrin, even in testing weather conditions.

The final numbers tell just how well Gold Coast suffocated Port Adelaide at the contest - and then opened up the small field at Bond University with handball receives and pinpoint kicking to forward targets.

Contested football: Win to Gold Coast, 121-101 with the telling number at clearances. Again, win to Gold Coast, 26-16.

Inside-50s: Win to Gold Coast, 34-27.

Scoreboard: Win to Gold Coast, 46-32 after having a game-high lead of 32 points during the third term.

And the oldest theme in Australian football - good kicking brings good football and good opportunities to score - served Gold Coast to break open this game to its advantage, as measured by three-goal bursts in each of the second and third terms.

The 14-point loss - in a game that is being described as "spiteful" while Port Adelaide fielded five former Gold Coast players - puts Port Adelaide at 1-1-3 on the win-draw-loss ledger. The margin would have been more painful had there not been a four-goal surge during the last term when Port Adelaide feasted after a long famine on the scoreboard.

The post-game review, however, cannot ignore Port Adelaide having to become smarter, particularly by foot, when moving to ball against loaded defences. The direct path down the line might not always be as prudent as the switch play to work behind the extra defensive numbers.

Defeat puts a heavy thud against the euphoria of the previous weekend's breakthrough win against Sydney at Alberton Oval - and the loss sets up a week of deep re-thinking in the lead-up to the first Showdown in AFLW, at Adelaide Oval on Friday night.

Gold Coast broke open a congested game - and gained a 19-point lead at half-time - with a three-goal rush late in the second term when Port Adelaide was working with the breeze. The formula was simple - win the contest and move the ball quickly by foot rather than by hand. The Gold Coast forwards - Ellie Hampson, Tara Bohanna and Courtney Jones all scoring from set shots - finally found the way to defy Port Adelaide defender Alex Ballard who finished with a match-high 10 marks.

Tellingly, Gold Coast finally broke the Ballard-Indy Tahau wall to pinpoint seven marks inside its forward-50 arc. Port Adelaide managed just two marks inside-50. The numbers tell of the contrast in how the two teams loaded their attacks.

Early scoring opportunities, however, were limited by the strong contested and defensive styles of both teams that set up a game of hot handpasses rather than creative kicks on a small deck. Port Adelaide had only a behind on the scoreboard at half-time, a snap by former Gold Coast captain Hannah Dunn who made the most of her return to south-east Queensland with 17 touches.

The difficulty in setting up Port Adelaide scores forced captain Erin Phillips to be reinstated - for a short burst - to the midfield set-ups late in the second term before resuming an intense duel with Lauren Ahrens in the Gold Coast defence.

Port Adelaide's first goal was not scored until late in the third term - when Gold Coast had a 32-point lead - by Britt Perry finishing a set shot.

The second, third, fourth and fifth were all in a quick burst during the last term when Gold Coast lost composure after Port Adelaide vice-captain Ange Foley put heat into the game. Foley benefitted from a reversal of a down-field free kick to Gold Coast to score the second while Sachi Syme put up the third from a down-field free kick after team-mate Justine Mules was bumped late by Gold Coast rival Serene Watson.

In-form defender Indy Tahau found herself at the goalfront scoring - rather than saving - goals to give Port Adelaide its fourth to complete a quick break from a centre bounce. The same theme worked for Perry to give Port Adelaide its fifth goal.

The four-goal rush during the last term cannot - and should not - mask some critical themes put on the agenda by Gold Coast's effective work at the contests and plays to clear the stoppages.

Conditions were of extremes. The surface at Bond University was still wet. The air was baking under full sunshine with the temperature at 24C - and there was a testing, blustery breeze that favoured Gold Coast at the start.

"And it was hot at the contest too," said Port Adelaide defender Eboy O'Dea. "Every groundball was hard."

The contested numbers finished +20 for Gold Coast, but were a red flag during the second term when Gold Coast went on a three-goal run against the wind.

Gold Coast dominated the opening with a commanding count of 10-4 inside-50s, but managed just twice to get past the intercept marking of Port Adelaide duo Ballard and Tahau.

Port Adelaide's only shot on goal was after the siren, from Sachi Syme whose kick just inside the 50-metre arc was fanned from the goalfront by the breeze.

It was a tackling quarter - 18 tackles by Gold Coast and 17 by the league's most prolific tacklers at Port Adelaide. "It is going to be a fun contest for four quarters," noted Arnell at quarter-time while urging her "Inaugurals" to be "more aggressive with the footy" to create more space to counter Gold Coast's one-on-one game.

Gold Coast lived up to this vision by matching Port Adelaide in tackling with the final count at Gold Coast 67, Port Adelaide 68.

Rising Star nominee Hannah Ewings was most effective in putting the Gold Coast defence under pressure with her long kicks from contests to the forward arc. The Ewings-Abbey Dowrick Show dealt with much static interference from Gold Coast with neither player hitting the scoreboard in this game while being heavily marked.

There is much for Port Adelaide to study from this loss.

And Arnell's "Inaugurals" will need to be quick learners as they now go to a derby, Showdown I at Adelaide Oval on Friday evening.

GOLD COAST v PORT ADELAIDE

PORT ADELAIDE    0.0    0.1    1.1      5.2 (32)

GOLD COAST       0.2    3.2    6.2      7.4 (46)

BEST - Port Adelaide: Ballard, Foley, Tahau, Moloney, Dunn.

GOALS - Port Adelaide: Perry 2, Foley, Syme, Tahau.

INJURY: Nil.

CROWD: 1419 at Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland.

NEXT: Showdown I, Adelaide Oval, Friday 7:30pm.