Port Adelaide have won four consecutive games since disappointing results in Rounds 2 and 3. Image: AFL Photos.

WHERE do we start when the agenda is so full? With a bit of philosophy, the proverb that says: "It's always darkest before the dawn".

When the lights were shut down at Adelaide Oval just before midnight on April 1 - only a month ago - it could not have been darker. To quote a former Port Adelaide player, the after-the-siren loss in Showdown LI a year earlier had seemed a slap in the face; painful, but life quickly moved on.

Showdown LIII's result stayed in this former player's face for an unprecedented 30 minutes, longer than any other derby defeat this century. It was a kick in the guts and a punch to the ribs, all at the same time - and the pain lingered as Travis Boak will tell you of battered ribs.

Perhaps it was the build-up with the wearing of the traditional black-and-white bars; the heavy favouritism carried into the game and the status of being South Australia's best-ranked AFL team - a title held since 2018 - becoming an awkward question rather than a certainty.

Port Adelaide were defeated by a fast-finishing Adelaide outfit in Round 3. Image: AFL Photos.

And the way the Showdown Shield disappeared from its well-grooved perch at Alberton ... a four-point lead in the 11th minute of the last term became a 26-point deficit with five unanswered goals conceded in just 14 minutes and 15 seconds.

The reaction outside of Alberton was extraordinary. 

If Malcolm Blight could build a premiership campaign in 1997 after falling to a 1-3 win-loss record with the ignominy of defeat in the first Showdown, why would Port Adelaide be doomed at 1-2 with 20 games to play in the longest AFL home-and-away series of all time?

Since the darkest hour of Showdown LIII, Port Adelaide has:

WON four consecutive games (just as it did last season when senior coach Ken Hinkley refashioned his playbook to match the players left standing after a costly 0-5 start to the 2022 season).

BEATEN 2022 grand finalist Sydney, 2022 finalist Western Bulldogs and 2023 league leader St Kilda. Here is the answer to those keeping count of how often Port Adelaide beats teams higher-ranked teams.

Port Adelaide go into Round 8 with a 5-2 win-loss ledger. Image: AFL Photos.

ENDURED being without its most-experienced ruckman in Scott Lycett, captain Tom Jonas by injury and suspension and losing young forwards Todd Marshall (concussion) and Mitch Georgiades (season-ending knee surgery) during this defining month.

What does such results say of the Port Adelaide football club's AFL program - more so after the external concern with the unconvincing or underwhelming form shown during the pre-season clashes with Fremantle and West Coast in Perth?

The four consecutive wins - on top of the season-opening win at Adelaide Oval against 2022 preliminary finalist Brisbane - tell of a sound and solid program that continues to make players better and commands the confidence and belief of the players.

Dark it was after Showdown LIII.

But it was not the end of a campaign. Certainly not at 1-2 that is now 5-2 - and the past four wins have highlighted Port Adelaide is not a one-trick pony, a team with just one plan in its playbook. 

It also is not a team built for one venue. Port Adelaide extended its winning streak under the roof at the Docklands in west Melbourne to eight in three years by beating St Kilda by seven points at the indoor arena on Friday night.

Port Adelaide have won its last eight games at Marvel Stadium, by far the longest active winning streak at the venue. Image: AFL Photos.

It is not lost on some that this game would have been at Jiangwan Stadium in Shanghai, had a worldwide pandemic not started in China that changed the plan for Port Adelaide and St Kilda to carry the AFL image on the international stage.

So where is Port Adelaide's "China Strategy" now - that dawn that followed the darkest hours of 2010-2012 when the Port Adelaide Football Club was challenged to find a new business plan that went beyond mere survival?

At the start of the season, club chief executive Matthew Richardson answered: "So much has changed in the world that is out of our control. No-one could have foreseen the COVID pandemic in 2020. 

"Most important (from the China chapter) was the mindset and attitude. We came up with the challenge of putting on an AFL game for premiership points - not a pre-season game with little on the line - in Shanghai. We delivered. And that says we can do anything. It says we are a progressive, forward-thinking club. It is bold. It has ambition. 

"We have a major partner - MG - from China that is on an amazing journey and we are with them on that journey."

Fans celebrate a goal in Shanghai in 2019. Image: AFL Photos.

Port Adelaide is growing - not just surviving - as a football club with the China experiences changing the perception of an organisation that was labelled a basket case on death row.

Certainly not lost on anyone is how Port Adelaide (generally) keeps finishing games with a negative free-kick differential this season. The count so far from six matches is round by round -

BRISBANE: 12-25

COLLINGWOOD: 15-34

SHOWDOWN LIII: 29-22

SYDNEY: 23-32

W BULLDOGS: 23-24

WEST COAST: 21-23

ST KILDA: 14-24

Port Adelaide has lost the free kick deferential in six of their seven matches. Image: AFL Photos.

Such basic numbers are usually not enough to make a case on an umpiring issue with any team. There would need to be the complete story of how many free kicks were missed (a non-decision is a decision), how many of the called free kicks were warranted and how many were not.

Certainly no-one expects the free-kick count to be level at the end of any game.

But when a team is repeatedly giving away more free kicks than it is earning, some questions need to be asked - and answered - both internally and with the AFL umpiring department.

"It'd be nice to get some clarity from the umpires back to us," senior coach Ken Hinkley says. "If we're that poor at some of the things we're doing, I'd just like to get that direction coming back our way in a two-way conversation.

"I think it'd be nice to feel why we've given away 20-plus more free kicks for holding-the-man, six rounds in. That is a big number; a big, big number. That gives up 300-400 metres a game ..."

Now that is untenable. 

Ken Hinkley says he is seeking direction to determine if his side can change anything to minimise how many free kicks they are being penalised for. Image: AFL Photos.

ON REVIEW: Fos Williams wrote this in his Creed on his return to Port Adelaide in 1962: "We know that should we, after striving to our utmost and giving our everything, still not be successful, our efforts will become a further part of this club’s enviable tradition."

Success is built step by step.

NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo said this last week on the repeat exit of his Milwaukee Bucks from the US basketball play-offs: "Every year you work, you work toward something - to a goal - which is to get a promotion, to be able to take care of your family, to be able to provide a house for them or take care of your parents. You work toward a goal. It’s not a failure. It’s steps to success.

"Michael Jordan played 15 years. Won six championships. The other nine years was a failure? 

"There’s no failure in sports. There’s good days, bad days. Some days you are able to be successful, some days you are not. Some days it is your turn, some days it’s not," he added. "That’s what sports is about. You don’t always win. Some other group is gonna win, and this year someone else is gonna win. Simple as that. We’re gonna come back next year and try to be better, try to build good habits, try to play better."

Showdown LIII ended in defeat. It did not end Port Adelaide's season. How it ultimately ends will inevitably stoke this debate on failure and success in sport.