The Power reported several sore bodies following the game, including Chad Cornes (knee), Troy Chaplin (bruised shin), Travis Boak (corked thigh) and Jacob Surjan (corked calf). And ruckman Dean Brogan pulled out before the opening bounce with a corked thigh and is also understood to be carrying a shoulder/back injury.
However, Port Adelaide has already declared all five players to be available for Sunday’s all-important clash with Hawthorn at AAMI Stadium.
Tom Logan and Josh Carr have also recovered from a bout of the flu, leaving Daniel Motlop as the only first-choice player on the club’s injury list.
Motlop (broken ankle) is still another four weeks away from completing his rehabilitation.
Cornes, who failed to return to the ground after hurting his troublesome knee, appeared to be the biggest concern for the Power.
But assistant coach Matthew Primus denied Cornes had experienced a re-occurrence of an injury that he had battled with earlier in the season.
“His knee injury was nothing to do with the problem he had earlier in the year. He just copped a kick right in the middle of the kneecap and it got real sore. He was at recovery today and he said it was feeling better than it was," Primus said.
“Chad’s actually hurt his finger too, but that’s okay. He’ll do something about that at the end of the year."
Port Adelaide was completely outplayed after the first quarter of Sunday’s 70-point Showdown loss to Adelaide and will need to re-group this week to stay in the finals hunt.
Primus maintained the Power was good enough to make the eight, despite the team's frustratingly inconsistent form.
“The real disappointing thing, aside from not winning a Showdown, was that all the results went our way for us to really get a leg-up on the teams we’re battling with for seventh or eighth position,” Primus said.
“Now, we play Hawthorn and Carlton, a couple of teams we’re fighting with [for those spots] over the next five or six weeks, so every game becomes a final for us.
“Hawthorn have got a bit of their form back and we need to respond after another loss, which seems to be all we’re doing every second week.”
