PORT ADELAIDE Senior Assistant Matthew Nicks says his side has already shown improvement in its efficiency going inside 50, but still has a lot of work to do to be up with the league’s best.
The Power took 18 marks and booted 16.14 from 62 inside
Nicks said as well as being cleaner going forward, his side dealt well with Fremantle’s early pressure and managed to find a way to control the game.
“I thought most of the time we looked reasonably composed with the ball with a good shape on the field and even though we couldn’t put them away, to their credit they just kept coming, eventually coming into that last quarter we were able to knock a few in and then prevent them from scoring and I thought the boys looked reasonably comfortable,” he said.
Also pleasing for Port Adelaide’s coaching team was the side’s ability to handle the second-half absence of All-Australian ruckman Paddy Ryder, after he went down with an Achilles injury.
“We saw for a good substantial part of the game that we were able to get the job done without him on the field so disappointing for the team and for him individually but he’s been through harder than this so hopefully won’t be too long and we’ll get him back,” Nicks said, commenting that discussions were underway on how to replace Ryder for Sunday afternoon’s meeting with Sydney.
“We’ve got some young guys there who are knocking on the door that want to play, obviously not to the level of experience of Paddy, but some of our young kids would be keen to step up but it’s just a matter of what sort of balance we want to go in with over there against Sydney.
“We were really happy with what Westy (Justin Westhoff) brought, and then it’s a matter of does Charlie spend some time in there, does Dougal Howard spend some time, or does Ollie Wines again do an important role for us.”
While Robbie Gray is certain to return after completing a one-match suspension, Nicks said other planning for the Swans would take place later in the week, including how to tackle Lance Franklin after his eight-goal opening round performance against West Coast.
“He’s in amazing form,” Nicks said.
“It just seems like he keeps getting better and he’s a hard match-up at the best of times but it just seems like at the moment he’s in rare form.
“We’ll back in our back six and we’re more than happy with the way (Tom) Clurey’s gone about his footy over the last couple of years, he’s a hard defender to beat, so it would be a match-up we’ll look at.”
Nicks, a former Sydney player, said the Swans were hard to beat anywhere, especially at the SCG, but he noted the Power won there by 28 points in Round 1 last year.
“The last time we matched up was a real positive for us that showed us that we can get it done,” He said.
“I think we took a lot out of last year, now our team has changed, we’ve got some new guys in, but we’ll go over there with some confidence that we’ll take on a really high-quality side and give it our best crack.”
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