IT began as the season for redemption. The campaign for the 2023 AFL premiership ended at home on Saturday night with many R themes such as -

REGRET: A season that created such high hopes - and a top-four finish - on the back of a club record of 13 consecutive AFL wins ends with the uneasy feeling of collapsing to a missed opportunity.

Losing consecutive finals - and being overpowered in both - carries the pain of wondering what was denied by having a team start to fall out of shape into vulnerability by the repetitive body blows taken from round 17. Injuries do not excuse failure; they simply reinforce that Port Adelaide needs to keep building the depth and strength of its squad.

Internally, the expectation - the mission statement - was to win the flag. Externally, the most-enthusiastic March predictions of Port Adelaide's fortunes were for a rise from non-finalist to contender in the 5-8 bracket.

But a grand opportunity was created by having 17 wins in the longest home-and-away campaign of all time. Opportunity missed ... but not wasted if it delivers a blueprint to future success with a squad that is still building its age, experience and talent profile.

REVIEW: There are two inevitable conclusions from any deep reflection on the season. First, the enthusiasm for the evolution of the midfield to the young hands of Connor Rozee, Zak Butters, Jason Horne-Francis and Willem Drew is matched by the need to see this critical battery broaden in depth. Settling on wingmen for next season makes for a fascinating debate. The numbers that are haunting from the semi-final loss to Greater Western Sydney on Saturday night are from the clearances - won on a 2:1 ratio by GWS.

Second, the long-standing need for more tall-playing "lock-down" defenders is now a high priority. The question of where Miles Bergman works - on a wing or in defence - very much hangs on which of the two glaring needs from 2023 remains stark next season.

REFLECTION: Questions certainly need to be asked and answered on whether Port Adelaide has the gameplan to succeed in September. Well before the finals began, there was the fall away in dominance of the trademark forward-half play and the inside-50 count. And the harshest results exposed a team needing greater resilience in defence.

RESTOCK: List management takes command now. Port Adelaide will be answering its need in ruck with the trade play for Jordon Sweet from the Western Bulldogs; and pressing needs in defence with Brandon Zerk-Thatcher from Essendon and Esava Ratugolea from Geelong.

To have such players seek the move to Alberton emphasises external belief in a football program that is still building rather than fading.

There is the reminder that to get, a club also must give in this controlled environment of salary caps and drafts.

REACTION: How many phases are there in the emotional reactions to finals losses? In the testing hours from 2001-2003, the breakthrough 2004 AFL premiership was built on a determination to become better and tougher. Sometimes the toughest task is to avoid losing time and energy to destructive distractions.

There will be painful reactions from the disappointment of two poor finals performances. This is inevitable. Being distracted by these reactions need not be the norm. The challenge is to avoid having 2023 become a waste; it needs to reveal lessons that are invaluable for a roadmap to greatness.

RESPONSE: It begins in late March .... Redemption continues.

ON REVIEW: At quarter-time in Saturday night's semi-final at Adelaide Oval, Willem Drew has rekindled so many memories of fellow Port Adelaide midfielder Roger James in another knock-out final almost two decades earlier.

Of the top-10 possession earners on Saturday, the first nine were Greater Western Sydney players. The lone Port Adelaide player in this group was Drew - two kicks, five handpasses, seven disposals in total while winning four in hotly contested battles. He also had ushered Port Adelaide out of defence three times while Greater Western Sydney was loading the scoreboard during the time-on period.

There has not been such a lone hand played by a Port Adelaide player in a final since Roger James took on a rampant St Kilda running sorties to key forward Fraser Gehrig - for his 100th goal of the season - in the 2004 preliminary final at Football Park.

That Friday night was James' eighth final - and 136th senior match at Port Adelaide.

This semi-final was Drew's fourth final - and his 81st AFL senior match - and closed a season in which he played in all of Port Adelaide's 25 games.

"(Finals) do go up (in intensity)," Drew said. "We know what happened in the contest. You have to make sure you stand up. GWS did.

"They were on top at the stoppages. That is where we lost it."

The rawness of defeat that ends a season, a long campaign that began with pre-season training in November, is never appropriately captured in words of a crest-fallen player trying to understand what has unfolded across the previous two hours ... and how within weeks it will all start again from zero.

"Disappointing and we are extremely disappointed ...," said Drew. "We wanted to play well. But full credit to GWS; they really brought it to us, especially around the midfield. We were not able to handle their heat ... and they were able to get good looks (at scoring)."

In rising from non-finalist to a top-four contender - but failing to win two finals - does bring into question the label to put on Port Adelaide's season.

"It has been a long year ... and we definitely wanted more," Drew said. "In the big games, you have to stand up in the contest. We were not able to do that.

"(In the moments after defeat in a knock-out final) it is hard to reflect on the year. Across the next few days, we will review. We can reflect on the brilliant run that put us on a 13-game (winning) roll ... and after the bye, we were not at our best. We have something to look at ... and we will be hungrier (for knowing what was missed this season)."

Port Adelaide's two finals losses - to Brisbane at the Gabba in the qualifying final and on Saturday night in the semi-final at home - did expose a common theme.

"Our contest ... and giving up stoppage goals," noted Drew of the cracks. "And not being able to stand up in the big moments."

Season 2024 will begin with Port Adelaide being watched as a team that again rebounds from disappointment ... or cracks.

"We will have things to work on during the summer; the review will make sure of that," Drew said. "But knowing this group, the boys will be hungrier than ever."

The first test as to whether Port Adelaide can avoid being overwhelmed by Saturday night's result was at half-time when everyone was challenged to deal with - by internal assessment - was labelled as "unacceptable".

"We are not the sort of group to give in; we will keep fighting," Drew said. "Unfortunately, we did not do that for long enough in this final."

Drew has taken his own firm steps this year to establishing himself as a vital cog in the Port Adelaide engine, particularly when a shadow needs to be cast on a dangerous opponent.

"This is a team sport, a team game so personally I play for a team, wanting to win; wanting to win finals," Drew said. "So this is disappointing ...

"Finishing in the top four (at the end of the home-and-away series) was a great achievement. But we were not able to do it when it counted."

VALE: RON BARASSI leaves us with Saturday night's semi-final at Adelaide Oval very much living to his legacy in Australian football.

Barassi stood alongside Norm Smith when they brought their VFL powerhouse of Melbourne to Norwood Oval to battle Port Adelaide as the kings of SANFL football during the 1950s - a duel that put down the base for a national competition, particularly for Port Adelaide leaders Fos Williams and Bob McLean.

Barassi was the powerful force who during the early 1990s ensured Australian football did not collapse in the rugby cradle of Sydney, a decade after a cash-strapped South Melbourne had left Victoria to start VFL expansion.

On Saturday night, both themes came together while the game mourned his loss. Sydney has a second AFL team where once it was too difficult to keep an old VFL club afloat. And Port Adelaide has risen from those suburban roots to be part of a national league for Australian football.

Barassi's greatest achievement in Australian football is how his passion for the game to have its national footprint live on while he takes to a higher pedestal in a grander pantheon than the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

Port Adelaide will not forget his contribution to giving Australian football its national identity.