BEATING Brisbane on Saturday night would make it ‘mission accomplished’ for Port Adelaide before it departs the AFL’s Queensland hub, according to coach Ken Hinkley.
Hinkley’s side is currently unbeaten after four games and sitting top of the ladder, having beaten Fremantle and West Coast since setting up camp in Queensland a fortnight ago.
When asked on Friday what it would mean to get on the plane back to Adelaide on Sunday night after a win over the Lions, the Port coach was straight up.
“For this part of the season, mission accomplished,” he said.
“That’s what we came here for. I said it before that we’ve come up here to try and win three games of football.
“So far we’ve won two games and it’s really important that we try and get the third one tomorrow night.”
Port Adelaide’s last loss was to North Melbourne in Round 22, way back in August last year.
It has since enjoyed an unbeaten pre-season and four wins to start the Premiership campaign.
While Hinkley doesn’t know what the fixture holds beyond tomorrow night, he has been happy with the way his side has responded and adapted to so much uncertainty in 2020.
“I’m really pleased with our whole season – I go back to the Marsh Cup and everything that we’ve done all the way through, we’ve been pretty strong in our performances,” he explained.
“We’ve had a good start but we know the challenges get bigger.
“The good thing about us is that we’re accepting what those challenges are and we’re meeting them head on.
“We understand the challenge of next week, but we’ve got one challenge in front of us right now and that’s tomorrow night.”
MATCH CENTRE: Port Adelaide v Brisbane Lions
The last time Port met the Lions was a 21-point win in the pre-season Marsh Cup, when star Brisbane midfielder Lachie Neale had 46 disposals in a losing side.
Hinkley said Neale remained in good form but there was no specific plan to curb his influence.
“We’ve been lucky enough to see Lachie up close too many times and he’s played really well against us,” he said.
“It’ll be about team v team, it won’t be about Lachie Neale or anything like that.
“For us it’s doing our best work collectively to try and get the result that we need.”
BROADCAST GUIDE: Round 5 Power v Lions
For the first time in 2020, Port Adelaide goes into a game with an unchanged line-up and Hinkley said that was in part down to rewarding the form of the players in the side.
But he said defender Ryan Burton was close to being selected, just two weeks after knee surgery.
“He got quite close. He did most of the training yesterday and he himself wasn’t just ready to go and he was the one who said ‘I think I’ll give it one more week’,” Hinkley revealed.
“It’s just the recovery. He had surgery two weeks ago and he doesn’t quite have the strength that he’d like to feel in his knee right now but it was really close.”
Port Adelaide takes on Brisbane at the Gabba from 7:40pm AEST / 7:10pm ACST on Saturday 4 July.
