PORT ADELAIDE coach Mark Williams has responded to criticism the Power took their aggressive tactics too far against Geelong on Sunday by saying he’d prefer his side to be tagged "too hard" than "too soft".

The Power took the deliberate approach of attacking Geelong physically with the aim of asserting their presence on the game.

The ploy worked in the first quarter, but an on-song Geelong moved up a gear in the second and outplayed Port Adelaide in the remaining three terms to run out 59-point winners. The Power conceded 10 more free kicks than Geelong, along with a handful of 50-metre penalties, but Williams said he was “really impressed” with the way his side attacked the reigning premiers.

“It was a pretty physical game and, as I said after the game, I thought we played pretty physical against them, which was good to see. At least you walk away feeling like you’ve been a part of the game,” Williams said.

“We gave a lot of free kicks away, and most of them were there in reflection.

“You talk one week about [us] being too soft, the next week about being too hard and then we’re back to being soft again, so we haven’t got the mix exactly right. If we were going to err on one side, it would certainly be on the hard side, not the soft side.”

“There’s a fine line with [aggression] at every club, and even in our premiership year we probably had the most frees given against us and the most reports. That happens.

“It’s certainly not going to be a premiership year right at this moment, but back then we had Damien Hardwick, Josh Carr, Byron Pickett, Roger James, Matthew Primus and Josh Francou, those sort of players coming through our group, and we’d like to think we can develop a group that matches that in the years to come.”

Williams said the club needed to get back to its “grassroots” and to play the physical brand of football that made Port Adelaide so successful in the SANFL.

Williams also said he wasn’t concerned by Geelong coach Mark Thompson’s claim that the Power’s feisty tactics actually fired his the Cats up.

“I don’t care what it did to them; it was better for our club,” Williams said.