PORT ADELAIDE defender Troy Chaplin believes it’s quantity, not quality, that has prevented the Power winning more games this season.

In Launceston on Saturday, the Power worked hard to establish a winning position, only to see the game slip through their fingers for the fourth time in 2008.

Port Adelaide stunned Hawthorn with a seven goal to two first quarter and extended their lead to 38 points during the second term, but, predictably, the unbeaten Hawks responded and reversed the scoring trend.

The brave Power trailed by just seven points at three-quarter time, but couldn’t manage to regain the lead.

“I think we showed in the first half that we’re an exciting team that can take it up to some of the best teams in the competition, who are playing great footy at the moment,” Chaplin told Radio 5AA.

“When you play against a team like Hawthorn that has such a good forward line, with a guy like Lance Franklin who is always going to kick goals because he’s that hard to stop, you expect him to kick a bag.”

“It was always going to be a tough game and we knew they were going to get a run on at some stage. It was just a matter of whether we could sustain that pressure and unfortunately we couldn’t.”

Chaplin said he was ‘disappointed’ by Hawks forward Mark Williams’ choking gesture, but didn’t believe it was a deliberate attack on Port’s ability to close out games.

“I don’t think that we choke, but probably our last quarters, or our second halves, have let us down,” he said.

“We were so exciting in the first half when we moved the ball well and quickly and if we’d sustained that for four quarters, everyone would be pumping us up and saying how well we played.

“I think we’re playing as good a football now as we probably can, but we just can’t sustain it at the moment.”

Chaplin, who picked up 20 touches and eight marks against the Hawks, said the players would sit down individually during the week to try and pinpoint the reason behind the Power outages.

“I don’t think it’s a fitness thing. We had a pretty big pre-season and did more work this year than we did at this time last year,” he said.

“It’s probably a little bit of a mental toughness and what you can do when your opponent has the ball. Like are you working hard enough or are you cruising along hoping someone else is going to do the chase for you?

“Obviously, we’ve got a pretty tough couple of weeks ahead of us with Sydney at home this week and then we go to Perth to play Fremantle.

“I’d like to think we’re a chance to win both those games and if we can, we can get back to that 50-50 mark.”