PORT ADELAIDE assistant coach Josh Carr has revealed midfielder Zak Butters is putting in extra work to find ways to break a tag, after his impact has been limited in recent weeks by taggers.

Butters has been averaging 20 disposals in his last three games after averaging 29.4 in the ten games previous.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Carr said Butters had come in this week with a desire to educate himself and find ways to get better.

Carr also discussed how the rest of the midfield group can help Butters, his view on how to help the forward line function better, and how he feels about seeing the club this week wear a replica of the guernsey he wore as part of the 2004 premiership.

Josh Carr on Zak Butters’s challenging his ban and his optimism around Butters being able to face Brisbane:

“It's a fine line when you're in that situation, so fingers crossed that they're about to get off. That's been my conversation with Zak around that, that there was no intent to hit him high or anything like that. He's a very good player, so obviously I'm going to want to have our best team out there. It's always nice.”

Josh Carr on how Butters is working to deal with taggers going forward:

“The challenges that Zak's had over the last few weeks, you know, to be able to go out there again this weekend and I guess if a tag came his way, then he's able to face that and work through it. He's had a period in his career where he's been such a great player, and a really good player, where something different has been thrown at him. He's going to work through it and look, he was in my office very early today about the way that he goes about his football and he's obviously really disappointed with the game on the weekend.

“There’s lots of homework for him and lots of investment from him as well. So if you watch these games over the last few weeks you can see the effort that he's put in - on the weekend that was probably a little bit down - but I think in the previous weeks, you could see a really intent about what you call breaking the tag but I guess the bigger picture as a midfield group, is how we work together and get that job done. It's going to happen. A few weeks ago against North Melbourne where for one quarter Zak was tagged and then you know, Jason (Horne-Francis) was getting off the off the chain and playing really well. And then they moved to Jason. As a midfield group, we have to look after each other.  Now Zak can do definitely a lot more for himself and he's working towards that, he's got an individual plan there but as a group we can be better.”

Josh Carr on whether he hears criticism about the midfield group’s recent form:

“We assess every performance, off the back of every game and know that as a midfield group from the last quarter against Carlton and then this game, we've been down so it's nothing that fazes me really. As a group, we know that we've got to be better and we've worked really hard to get back to it.

“We just had a lot of players that were down and couldn't carry the can for the for the other guys so as I said, we're all disappointed coming out of that game but you know, the season’s a long season and we've got to just get ourselves back. This is a period of time where we've got a couple of challenges, but they’re challenges that we're not scared of.”

Josh Carr on Charlie Dixon’s potential three-week ban:

“I think my initial thoughts was I don't think his intent was to hurt the player and I thought it was more an accident more than anything. Again, obviously we’ll just wait for the tribunal and see what happens. But hopefully, again, that gets downgraded or whatever we're going for.

“We know what sort of person Charlie is in there - he is a fighter, so look he'd be disappointed that if he does miss them weeks that he's done that. I guess he's got to use it to get better and be ready for when he gets back.”

Josh Carr on how the forward line is functioning currently:

“We've got some challenges there at the moment but one is with the supply to go in there. We've been pretty low with our inside 50s over the last few weeks so first of all, we're going to probably get that right before we can totally assess the forwards group but it's a different looking forward line at the moment and it’ll be nice if we can this weekend maybe get Willie (Rioli) back, that would help with some talent forward of the ball and but again, I think we will get our supply right there first.

“We're not hiding away from the fact that we we’re not totally performing there but you know, we do have a couple players out that would also help.”

Josh Carr on the 2004 Premiership celebrations this weekend and the club wearing a 2004 replica retro guernsey against Brisbane:

“It's exciting more for the past players. 20 years on, to come back and have a bit of a celebration and then I guess for the current players at least I think they're pretty excited about pulling that jumper on. I think there's a lunch on before the game (for the 2004 premiership players) so they'll be doing that. I won't be there.

“(But), we had a few (2004) players that sat in the room here and went through the game and watched it in the office. It was a long time ago, so it was actually nice to sit down and my memory is not great so it was good to sit down with the guys and go through it and reminisce.”