It was a tough afternoon for Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval, falling to Adelaide by 65 points.
Inaccuracy plagued the Magpies, who struggled to get into the contest against a dominant Crows outfit.
Coach Tyson Goldsack was disappointed with the team’s performance, particularly its lack of inability to take its chances.
“[The] scoreboard was a result of how we played for the most part,” he said.
“We didn’t take our chances, but they had some walk-in shots and easy goals which was probably off the back of us not defending well enough, and that's kind of been a big piece in our wins over the last month.
“The fact that wasn't there today was disappointing against a team we knew would hurt us if we didn’t. Our plan and intentions were where we needed to be, but they weren't executed well enough or often enough.”
Despite the score, Goldsack said there was a lot to learn from the result, particularly for the younger team members.
“Emotionally, you don’t want to drag your heels too much thinking back to what you could have or should have done,” he said.
“We’ll try and move on as quickly as possible and take the learnings. It's a balancing act - you don’t want the young blokes to dwell on bad performances for too long, but you want them to learn from them and know the feeling of that compared to winning a game like last week against Sturt.”
The Crows dominated possession early and were able to convert accurately, kicking three goals, while Port Adelaide only registered two behinds.
Traffic was largely one-way during the second and third quarters, as Adelaide continued to capitalise while the Magpies were unable to break the streak of behinds.
Jackson Mead (23 disposals, five tackles, one goal) broke the goal-drought in the final term with a classy goal on the run before Hugh Jackson (15 disposals, nine tackles, one goal) joined in with one of his own, however the result remained unaffected.
Josh Sinn (19 disposals) suffered a hamstring injury midway through the fourth quarter which will be assessed throughout the week.
Goldsack mentioned Mead and Riley Bonner (28 disposals, four tackles, seven rebound-50s) as standouts in a challenging afternoon of play.
“Meady was good, nice and clean inside, uses the ball well when he gets it,” he said.
“Bons ran some unbelievable patterns on the outside. He was working back defensively to give us a number back there and some cover, which was great and working the other way with the ball in hand, so gave us some good drive.”
The Magpies have a bye next weekend before playing Glenelg on Saturday 12 August at Alberton Oval at 4:40pm.
SCOREBOARD
Port Adelaide 0.4 0.10 0.12 2.15 (27)
Adelaide 3.2 8.2 12.5 14.8 (92)
Goals: Jackson, Mead
Best: Mead, Bonner, Moore, Jonas, Sinn
