PORT ADELAIDE senior coach Ken Hinkley has lamented his side’s inability to adapt to the wet conditions in Sunday evening’s 48-point loss to Brisbane at Adelaide Oval.

Port gave up the first seven goals of the game to the Lions, and were never able to wrestle back any of the ascendency after that point.

The midfield battle is the club’s biggest performance indicator, and Hinkley says his side was beaten in the contest early.

“When our midfield has been able to give us a good look at it (we perform),” Hinkley said at his post-match press conference.

“In the conditions we have faced in our last two losses, they have been tougher conditions and we haven’t adapted as well as we should.

“We do enough work to adapt and get that right but we just haven’t been able to execute in those conditions as well as we need.

“Two things come out of it, the contest and metres gained - we were in the negative in the metres and our efficiency is really poor when we get in those conditions.”

Hinkley says the club won’t apologise for wanting to be an aggressive contested side, but conceded his players may have gone a little overboard at the start of the game, which allowed Brisbane’s midfielders to take control.

“Their ability to hit the scoreboard in those types of conditions - they had some good players who stood up, like Zorko and Lyons who got them off to a good start. We gave them a bit of an edge,” he said.

“We don’t make any apologies for being an aggressive football side, we have to be an aggressive football side.

“Perhaps did we get a little bit of that wrong at the very start of the game? That’s the reality. I’m not going to sit here and say we are going to step away from trying to play aggressive football - we just can’t afford to.”

The Power travels to the MCG to face Richmond on Saturday afternoon in Round 18.