THE mismatch between Port Adelaide and Richmond on Saturday brought to the surface one of the difficulties of running an always-competitive NAB Challenge.
The Power - knocked out of last year's prelim - went two weeks deeper into September than the Tigers outfit it vanquished at the Adelaide Oval in the first elimination final.
That means Port Adelaide is effectively a fortnight behind the Tigers in its preparation for a tough start to the 2015 home-and-away season.
It's no wonder a young line-up was taken to Albury to wear the Power's teal pre-season guernsey on Saturday.
Port Adelaide entered the NAB Challenge with a deliberate strategy to play line-ups closest to the ones that will take on Fremantle in Round 1 during its Adelaide-based trial games.
The first defeated the West Coast Eagles at Norwood last week; the second plays the Adelaide Crows at AAMI Stadium on Saturday.
Managing the challenges of late-starting seasons - as 2015's will due to the Cricket World Cup - along with a delayed start to pre-season, is one of the constant battles an AFL football program must fight.
The Power's football development manager Aaron Greaves acknowledged this on Sunday, but emphasised the decision will help the Power send out its best team when the proper stuff starts.
"Richmond played elimination finals and would've started their prep two weeks earlier than us, West Coast who we played last week were probably four weeks ahead of us," Greaves told FIVEaa.
"No doubt you'd love to see us playing our best sides across those three games, but hopefully the fans [and] people understand.
"They want us winning, and we want to be winning Round 1, Round 2, Round 3 and onwards.
"If it's our best preparation to play our likely Round 1 side in two games in Adelaide, knowing we've got to travel to Perth in Round 1 and we're playing in Albury in NAB 2, then that's the path we pick.
"I can completely understand ... everyone would like to see competitive games of footy all the time, but you've got to understand it's practice matches and we're practising to try and be ready for Round 1."
While acknowledging the difficulty in fielding a top notch side each week of the NAB Challenge, Greaves drew the positives from affording many inexperienced recruits game time against an elite-standard team.
As the man overseeing the Power's development program, he'll be charged with helping make sure the experience gained on Saturday translates to gains on the field, particularly for those players in the SANFL side.
"The experience our young guys got out of playing against Martin, Deledio, Houli and these really established AFL players was just great," Greaves said.
"The boys were definitely a little bit shell shocked during the first quarter and didn't have the composure a 50, 70 or 100-game player would have.
"Early on, we probably coughed the ball up a lot and didn't handle the AFL speed, and AFL heat.
"So it was a great experience for our young guys, they got better each quarter."
Port Adelaide is set to field a strong line-up against the Adelaide Crows at AAMI Stadium on Saturday 21 March.
That game gets under way at 3:30pm, just after the trial game between the clubs' SANFL sides.
