POOR turnovers led to Port Adelaide’s 25-point loss against the Adelaide Crows on Sunday at Alberton Oval, according to senior coach Chad Cornes.
The Magpies produced a composed and quick brand of football to lead by 24-points midway through the first term in their clash with Adelaide on Sunday and looked likely to produce their second scalp in a month.
But the second quarter was full of indecision and poor ball use which caused turnovers and, according to Cornes, cost Port the game.
A spirited comeback narrowed the Crows’ lead to six points midway through the final term, but another handful of skill errors led to turnovers and three unanswered Adelaide goals.
Cornes said at least 12 of Adelaide's 16 goals were thanks to Port's turnovers, ultimately proving the difference between the two sides.
"I loved the start," Cornes said.
"The energy and some of the tackling - we got two goals from tackles early - which was great and then, our turnovers in general cost us.
"The strength of ours in the past month has been our ball use and building the ball up well.
“But they [Adelaide] obviously scouted that and shut it down pretty well.
"The easy options weren't there and our skill level was way off, too."
Port came into the match from a bye and, prior to that, had won its last three games against Central District, West Adelaide and top-placed Woodville West-Torrens.
Cornes admitted the run of victories had given the side a sniff of belief going into the last month of the minor round.
"There was a good feeling and good energy around the group, but we didn't speak of finals as such,” Cornes said.
"We just have to deal with the byes because there are a lot of them.
"We were on a bit of a roll so we wanted to keep that roll going, but we are in no way going to use that [the bye] as an excuse.”
On a positive note, Jay Schulz produced an outstanding performance after being dropped from the AFL side, finishing with three goals and five marks.
"He [Schulz] made the most of the opportunities he got when and you saw how damaging he is,” Cornes told Portadelaidefc.com.au.
Port Adelaide travels to Prospect Oval next Sunday to take on North Adelaide.
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