OUR HISTORY. Our future. Our jumper.

It was the most perceptive banner that Port Adelaide players have never run through. The "virtual banner" digitally crafted for Showdown XLVIII at Adelaide Oval on Saturday makes a neat chapter list from the evening when the derby ledger was squared at 24-24.

HISTORY. Almost every historic Showdown is owned by Port Adelaide. First Showdown, won by Port Adelaide in 1997. Last Showdown at Football Park, won by Port Adelaide in 2013 with that Angus Monfries' goal. First Showdown at Adelaide Oval, won by Port Adelaide in 2014.

And the first stand-alone Showdown, won by Port Adelaide on Saturday evening when Australian football came out of its COVID-enforced 12-week slumber ... and Ken Hinkley's group rolled on with its perfect season.

The record books are rewritten, and not just with Port Adelaide's 75-point margin (10 more than in Showdown IX in the first derby of 2001). For the second consecutive Showdown, Port Adelaide has kept Adelaide to a record low score - this time 35 points (5.5) after conceding 44 (5.14) last season.

FUTURE. Connor Rozee. Xavier Duursma. Zak Butters. It is second-year encores rather than blues with the triple-treat of first-round draft picks Port Adelaide engineered in the 2018 off-season.

The temptation to have Rozee in the midfield - and in the starting centre-bounce battery - is impossible to resist. And the 20-year-old certainly understands the need to get his fingernails chipped, the Port Adelaide way, as highlighted by that smother on Ben Keay's kick to force a boundary throw-in during the second quarter.

Duursma's three goals in a derby were the end game of a very impressive work ethic. He threw himself into hot aerial clashes to highlight just how he feels in place in the AFL game after just 22 senior games. This hard edge, on top of the critical drive the teenage wingman offers outside the contest, should end the debate on whether Port Adelaide should have broken the bank to keep Jared Polec from moving to North Melbourne.

Butters' goal on the half volley of a bouncing ball at the Oval's northern end in the 15th minute of the second term might well be considered outrageous. But who would suppress the instinct of such an adventurous footballer?

List management is often judged with the benefit of hindsight. Who wants to argue against Jason Cripps' bold play to load up with first-round draft picks and strategy to build the league's best under-22 squad?

JUMPER. For the first time - and hopefully - not the last, Port Adelaide put on the bars in an AFL Showdown, the match that is the perfect setting for the 118-year-old guernsey.

It is always said, the players make the jumper not vice versa ... and on Saturday night 22 players more than honoured the spirit of the black-and-white bars; they made sure one of the strongest symbols from Port Adelaide's 150-year story can be remembered for more than a long list of SANFL triumphs. It is now part of the club's AFL future, not just its SANFL history. "Our history. Our future. Our jumper."

The current group of players have certainly made the jumper in an AFL context.

"We're pretty keen to wear it in every Showdown," says former captain Travis Boak, who was awarded the Showdown Medal for his 24-disposal performance.

Who would deny the bars belong in the Showdown?

In the two times Port Adelaide has worn the bars in AFL games at Adelaide Oval - the 2014 elimination final against Richmond and in Showdown XLVIII - the performances have lived up to every demand that symbolic jumper carries.

There is no question now that the Port Adelaide players of the AFL era understand the significance of the bars. And the doubt on how Port Adelaide could translate its proud and powerful SANFL culture to a player base chosen through a national draft is answered.

If the blue pinstripes work for the New York Yankees in American baseball, why not the bars for Port Adelaide?

"Even some of the young kids, they absorb that energy (from the jumper's) rich history," said Boak, with the point noted when Duursma put away his trademark arrow celebration after scoring a goal to lift his jumper with pride.

"Everytime you put (the black-and-white guernsey) on you're representing more than just yourself," Boak noted .... team-mates, the club's proud history, the Port Adelaide family - and the Port Adelaide community, make up Boak's list. It is now a jumper that unites a club that will not be torn apart.

"Everytime you put (the bars) on, it's like armour for us."

No-one knew what to truly expect from a Showdown like no other in a time like none before it. The 84-day break between premiership matches; the quarantine sessions after returning from the opening-round win against Gold Coast on the Gold Coast; the second "pre-season" training program; the COVID protocols demanding training in pairs and then groups of eight ...

Against such an extraordinary (and unprecedented) backdrop, many could have expected the momentum from Port Adelaide's promising start to the season to hit a bump. And then the rain on Saturday added another joker to the pack.

Take out the first 10 minutes - in which Adelaide scored two of its five goals while exposing Port Adelaide on turnovers - and the derby played to Port Adelaide's commanding script with minimal resistance. Even Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks admitted: "We were beaten with method."

Showdowns demand strength at the contest - and Port Adelaide immediately answered this call with a +13 differential in contested ball in the first term while being +5 at clearances. But the critical edge was in how Port Adelaide moved the ball from the stoppages and crunch points to create defining plays in space where Steven Motlop excelled with his run and precision.

Handball opened up the field - and again Port Adelaide has speed as a weapon to use in space. A staggering 105-39 count with marks in Port Adelaide's favour captured in numbers just how commanding Hinkley's crew was in controlling the ball.

"That's the way we want to play," Boak said of the energy and confidence that rises when Port Adelaide handballs to create constructive space and moves the ball, with speed.

"How we move the ball outside the contest is an aspect of the game we have worked on for a long period of time."

Such dominance allowed Port Adelaide to play deep to the goalfront - and the closer a team gets to the goal, the easier it should be to convert. The 17.8 scoreline is Port Adelaide's best finishing (68 per cent) since putting up 22.7 (76 per cent) against St Kilda in Shanghai a year ago.

LIKE NO OTHER NIGHT

It was different. Not since the days when SA Brewing - with its West End brand - sponsored the Showdown in the late 1990s has the trophy and best-afield medal not been presented on the field. Then it was to avoid a conflict with the AFL's brewing sponsorship; this time, those COVID protocols.

No run-through banner (although there was the virtual version with one side acknowledging Port Adelaide greats Greg Phillips and John Abley for their induction to the Australian Football Hall of Fame).

No cheer squads behind the goals - but 2000 fans spread out on the second tiers of the Adelaide Oval pavilions, sitting in every third seat.

There was the Never Tear Us Apart anthem in the 60 seconds before the first bounce at 7.10pm.

And - whether it was by accident or design - the Port Adelaide theme song was cut short on the Oval's public-address system at the end of the match leaving the fans to be heard ... and heard well, just as they were throughout the derby like none before it.

TAKE IT TO THE BANK

(Five things we learned from Round 2)

ALL WAY WITH DBJ As he approaches his 100-game milestone this season (currently 88 games played), Port Adelaide defender Darcy Byrne-Jones is finding his place in the AFL ... while proving a player's destiny is not decided by his draft number. "DBJ" was called at No. 52 in the 2013 AFL national draft. He was runner-up to Travis Boak in last year's club champion count for the John Cahill Medal - and deserved votes from the six judges who favored midfielders and forwards when casting their ballots for the Showdown Medal awarded to Boak.

IT'S BLACK AND WHITE No-one can argue against the black-and-white bars being part of Port Adelaide's - and the AFL's - image. More so when this is a jumper like no other - it is not of stripes, hoops or a sash; it is of a design created by Port Adelaide in 1902 when its players wanted to don colours that would not fade (as the magenta of the 1880s and 1890s did). No-one would dismiss the perfect place for the bars is in the Showdowns - home and away - to pay homage to the history of SA football before the national AFL transformation in 1990 and to make Port Adelaide's heritage hold a meaningful part in the club's present and future story. No-one should deny it anymore .... no-one. Absolutely no-one.

SMALL SAMPLE It is the era of quick analysis ... but for one game, the 36-36 draw between Collingwood and Richmond in the AFL's restart on Thursday night at the MCG, to generate alarm bells on the state of Australian football is a timely reminder of the danger in drawing conclusions from a small sample. Just 24 hours later, Geelong coach Chris Scott proved that teams with an attacking mindset will spare the game from doomsday calls. Collingwood's playbook was effective in clamping Richmond ... and also stymied Collingwood's need to score (or at least the creative mindsets of its players). And for those, such as Wayne Carey, who argue the game needs a "result", a draw is a result.

STARS SHINE As awkward - or to quote Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley, as "bizarre" - as the Thursday night game appeared while the AFL came out of its 81-day hold, the match did prove Richmond premiership and All-Australian half-back Bachar Houli is a most impressive player. Telling in the tight stages of the drawn game was Houli's uncompromising way of putting his head over the ball to win possession and unwavering commitment to relay the ball to a team-mate in a better position to effectively shape the play. The review at Punt Road this week will be easy for highlights that define the classical team player.

QUICK SAND West Coast continues to find the Gold Coast to be its Bermuda Triangle. In the white sand that is to be hub "home" for the Perth club, West Coast has in its past three games at Carrara drawn with Gold Coast in 2015, lost by three points in 2017 and lost by 44 points on Saturday night.

NEXT

v Fremantle, Metricon Stadium, Gold Coast

Sunday, 5.35pm (SA time)

Port Adelaide will move to its Gold Coast hub this week, but will treat the clash with the competitive Fremantle as a standard away clash - by training at home at Alberton and travelling late in the week. It is keeping it "normal" in abnormal times.

Vice-captain Ollie Wines is clear from his AFL-imposed ban for breaching COVID protocols and has built up his match fitness from the scratch-match Showdown played at Adelaide Oval on Saturday.