PORT ADELAIDE senior coach Ken Hinkley lamented his side’s inability to convert opportunities against Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night.

Hinkley said the greasy conditions didn’t make it easy for either side, but admitted the Crows were able to impact greater in the forward half of the ground.

“It was a really tough game to play from a conditions point of view,” Hinkley said at his post-match press conference.

“It was definitely a territory battle and we had plenty of opportunities to put scoreboard pressure on.

“To their credit, they finished a couple of times up at their front end better than we were capable of doing.

“The margin ended up getting out a bit further than it should’ve probably.

“If all of the other numbers are looked at, we would say it was a bit of an arm wrestle game.”

The senior coach had to change things drastically in the final term, with the Crows extending their lead to seven goals.

He swung Dougal Howard into attack, and the big man helped shift the momentum as the Power kicked five unanswered goals to reduce the margin to just 12 points late in the contest.

“We always know that Dougal can play some footy up the other end of the ground,” Hinkley said.

“He’s got some weapons that make it really challenging.

“I thought Dougal looked threatening when he went down there. Some of his weapons were a bit more threatening than what we had up there at the time.

“We were creative. We were actually daring enough to have a crack a doing some different stuff.

“We swapped the two talls and we did some stuff that was a bit different.”

Hinkley said it wasn’t ideal to lose defender Ryan Burton in the early stages of Showdown XLVI, and says the club will confirm the extent of the injury after he has had scans.

“It’s a small hamstring but it was enough to rule him out of the game,” he said.

“We will see what the scan says.

“We will tell you the facts when we know them. At the moment, we are not sure.”

Adelaide now hold a 24-22 head-to-head record against the Power, after Saturday night’s 20-point victory in front of 49,675 fans.