AHEAD of their meeting in Round 6 of the 2018 AFL Premiership Season we thought we would look back at one of our favourite clashes between Port Adelaide and North Melbourne.

The Kangaroos held the wood over the Power in the early AFL days with nine wins in the first nine meetings between the sides.

Port Adelaide had never beaten the Kangaroos twice in a row until 2007 when it had an 18-point win at Football Park in Round 2 followed by an all-important preliminary final victory.

The Kangaroos had finished the season strongly in fourth position with 14 wins and eight losses, and importantly were just one win behind Port Adelaide in second.

Having lost by over 100 points to eventual premier Geelong in the qualifying final, North responded in the semi to beat Hawthorn by 33 points.

The Power had beaten West Coast by just three-points to book its spot in the preliminary final and the match-up at Football Park came in front of 43,953 supporters.

The game was shaping as potentially the last for North great Glenn Archer and after much build-up, the game was unfortunately all but over by half time.

The home side had booted six goals without a miss in eleven first quarter minutes, and had nine by half time, while keeping the Kangaroos to three first-quarter goals and none in the second term.

And if it wasn’t over by then, an eight-goals-to-one third quarter certainly put an end to the contest.

Brendon Lade superb in the ruck, Shaun Burgoyne and Chad Cornes kept sending the ball forward at ground level and David Rodan was electric out of the contest.

But it was half-back Troy Chaplin who was probably best on ground with 32 disposals and eight marks and the ability to constantly repel the attacks by the Kangaroos.

The Power had eleven individual goal kickers, led by three each from Daniel Motlop, Warren Tredrea and Brett Ebert, and went on to win by 87-points – the same exact margin it defeated the Kangaroos by in an elimination final in 2005.

The only downside for Port was a serious knee injury to tough defender Michael Wilson in the second quarter which would see him miss the Grand Final the following week and eventually end his career. 

PORT ADELAIDE               6.0   9.3  17.10  20.13  (133)                  

NORTH MELBOURNE       3.2   3.7    4.10    5.16    (46)     

GOALS

Port Adelaide: Motlop, Ebert, Tredrea 3, Salopek, Rodan, Logan 2, Pearce, Boak, Westhoff, C Cornes, K Cornes

North Melbourne: Grant 2, Lower, Harris, Edwards 

BEST 

Port Adelaide: Chaplin, S Burgoyne, C Cornes, Logan, Pearce, Surjan, Motlop, Ebert, Rodan

North Melbourne: Harris, Simpson, Archer, Sinclair, Lower 

Umpires: Kennedy, Rosebury, Vozzo 

Official crowd: 43,953 at Football Park

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