KEN Hinkley has coached Port Adelaide in 165 AFL games since declaring in October 2012 that he was the "right man standing" to take a battered club out of its darkest shadow.

Where will Sunday's 17-point win against Greater Western Sydney - that marked Hinkley's qualification for AFL life membership - rank?

In those 165 games there are critical Showdown wins, in particular the last at Football Park in 2013 and first at Adelaide Oval in 2014; that gritty and successful comeback against Fremantle in the 2014 semi-final at Subiaco Oval in Perth; that first win against Melbourne at the MCG in 2013 when Hinkley had talked up the capabilities of his under-rated team with little to back up his slogans; the 2017 season-opener against Sydney at the SCG when the club was impressing prime ministers and presidents; Showdown XXXXV in May 2018 when Port Adelaide ended a five-derby losing streak ... and Hinkley let his emotions spill as the siren sounded.

Beating a highly regarded Greater Western Sydney line-up at Port Adelaide's favourite home away from home at Metricon Stadium can be added to the list. It is a top-10 result among 165 games across eight seasons in which Hinkley has known reviews of his work - particularly from a demanding supporter base - to stretch from one extreme to another.

Port Adelaide was challenged to respond after the 37-point loss to Brisbane at the Gabba eight days earlier. That game had brought into question just where does the team that has led the AFL competition since round 1 truly fits in this year's complicated race to the premiership?

Basically, this meant: Could Port Adelaide avoid being pushed around, particularly in the midfield, as it was by Brisbane in the decisive second quarter at the Gabba?

To win - and with a strong finish - means Port Adelaide, with a 5-1 win-loss record, is indeed the right team standing at the top of the AFL ladder as the competition moves beyond the one-third marker on the 17-game preliminaries to the top-eight finals.

"We are top of the ladder (and clear by one win) ... and we deserve to be there," Hinkley said in collecting his 93rd win in 165 games (56 per cent winning record).

Hinkley appeared intense as he found his seat in the coach's box at the start of the game. By contrast, his Port Adelaide team - that was up before dawn for an unusual long-haul flight on match day - was energetic as it took to the field where it has won four of four games this season. It oozed that vibrant energy befitting the image of a Port Adelaide unit Hinkley says he wants to see play with speed and capitalising in space.

It was - yet again for Port Adelaide-GWS encounters - another of those stare down games. And Port Adelaide did not blink - a significant result against a star-studded team that reached last year's AFL grand final by proving its patience in holding the ball does pay off, as noted in the preliminary final against Collingwood at the MCG.

Port Adelaide left its south-east Queensland hub last week challenged to work through questions created by its midfield collapsing to Brisbane. By the numbers, the recailibrated - and balanced - Port Adelaide engine won the clearances: 12-4 in the centre as a strong response to the Brisbane question; and 29-21 at other stoppages.

Many would have been prepared to ignore the scoreboard to just look at how Port Adelaide responded against a genuine AFL top-four contender. A "gallant" defeat would have done for some - as long as new cracks were not put in the Port Adelaide on-field image.

To win, with a strong finish to end a five-game losing streak to Greater Western Sydney, marks a significant result in Ken Hinkley's portfolio at Alberton. It ranks very highly. Some of his harshest critics will be self-isolating ...

STATE OF MIND

Port Adelaide 9.9 (63) d Greater Western Sydney 6.10 (46)

At three quarter-time - just after key forward Charlie Dixon scored his first goal of a dour game to restore a three-point lead for his team - the statisticians had recorded just two marks inside-50 for Port Adelaide.

It might have been more had Dixon and fellow go-to forward Justin Westhoff had avoided crossing flight paths. Port Adelaide's third key forward Todd Marshall had - in the era of "defensive forwards" - contained the intercept marking threat posed by Greater Western Sydney defender Nick Haynes.

Port Adelaide had scored just five goals.

And the lead was lost on the restart on a turnover after Port Adelaide defender Darcy Bryne-Jones was dispossessed by menacing Greater Western Sydney ruckman Shane Mumford.

The bookmakers, who had marked Port Adelaide as the underdog, were ready to pay out.

Less than half an hour later, Port Adelaide had another four marks in the forward-50 arc - from where Westhoff had been expelled - and had scored another four goals.

Games can change quickly ...

"We are a good team - and good teams respond," said Hinkley. "It is a significant step for us."

Midfielder Sam Powell-Pepper started the response by crashing through the wall for the goal that marked the fourth lead change in 15 minutes.

Inexperienced but promising wingman Kane Farrell kicked over the wall - from 55 metres with that damaging left foot - to make it a nine-point lead.

The two players who were giving the Port Adelaide midfield a critical new dimension were appropriately changing the tone of a constipated match.

And Port Adelaide was finally getting a reward for being tougher at the contest - the very question it needed to answer after the collapse to Brisbane in round 5.

The margin became 23 points while Port Adelaide found a superior way to move the ball and put the advantage on the scoreboard.

Port Adelaide has achieved a significant result by persisting after not being allowed to play its preferred game.

"Looked gone early in the last quarter ...," said Port Adelaide 2004 premiership captain Warren Tredrea. "But toughed it out - and found a way."

Some masterpieces are not easy to watch in their making.

"What a grind ...," said former Port Adelaide defender Alipate Carlile, "but what a win!"

Two teams capable of moving the ball with speed and scoring heavily stare at each other. In the same way football becomes tougher during September's finals, so have Port Adelaide-Greater Western Sydney encounters.

Last time, at Adelaide Oval last season, Hinkley pointed to Greater Western Sydney's willingness to work the game from its defensive half.

This time, the intense, dour nature of the contest highlighted how some players (and coaches) will perceive a game that appears to carry a heavy cost in defeat (more so than a great reward in victory).

The half-time score - Port Adelaide 4.4 (28), GWS 2.5 (17) - marked the lowest combined first-half tally in all of the clubs' 11 games: 45 points, nine short of last season's half-time total of 54 points at the Oval.

Defence - or more to the point, defensive actions - created a game to contradict the hope of a shoot-out with the 2019 Coleman Medallist (Jeremy Cameron) at one end and the 2020 contender (Charlie Dixon) at the other.

Of the 13 attempts Greater Western Sydney made from its defensive 50-meter arc, only one reached the forward-50 arc - and one turned over to give former Port Adelaide captain Travis Boak the first shot on goal (for a goal).

"We're playing a strong brand of football, but we have not created enough scoreboard pressure," said Hinkley at half-time.

The game finally opened up for Port Adelaide - with eight shots, seven scores and four goals in the last term - by the paradox move of having one less key forward with Westhoff shifted from attack to defence for the final quarter ....

"We were the better team for the most part," Hinkley said while acknowledging Greater Western Sydney's dominant third quarter.

Port Adelaide was the right team standing to be counted most when it mattered most -  at the end.

QUOTE OF THE POST-GAME

It was a bit of a shock when the alarm went off at 4.30 this morning. But we've embraced the challenge - as a whole club - for whatever this year throws at us.

Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley on match-day travel to the Gold Coast

TAKE IT TO THE BANK

(Five things we learned in the past week)

1) HOLDING YOUR TONGUE. You do not always, as Ken Hinkley says, get all you deserve. But you can often get what is coming your way from the karma bus. Hawthorn premiership coach Alastair Clarkson wanted more holding-the-ball calls from AFL umpires. But what would Clarkson say of the last-quarter moment at the Sydney Showgrounds on Friday night when key forward Tim O'Brien was called holding-the-ball in the centre circle after being pushed forward - or "crashed into the ground," as commentator Bruce McAvaney put it - by the Collingwood tandem of Brayden Maynard and Darcy Moore?

2) HOME FIELD. It pays to play at home, even without every seat filled. Brisbane started the premiership season at the MCG where it lost by 28 points to Hawthorn - prompting one critic to suggest a big fall for the team that was ranked second in home-and-away football last season before making a straight-sets exit from the AFL major round. Brisbane appeared a genuine premiership favourite on the restart with four consecutive wins (against Gold Coast hub quartet Fremantle, Adelaide, West Coast and Port Adelaide) at its Gabba home. And that 27-point loss to Geelong at the SCG on Thursday nightjust reinforces how teams can be very different when away from the comforts of home.

3) TIME ILLUSION. Every rule has its exception - and every theory in AFL football during this shortened season with shorter (16-minute) quarters is being tested. The trimming of match time - from 20 to 16 minutes, plus time-on, in each term - put up the theme that fast starts would become match-winning plays this year. St Kilda - or more to the point, Fremantle - proved otherwise at Metricon Stadium, Gold Coast on Saturday. St Kilda, after a seven-goal opening term, led by 37 points two minutes into the second term. Fremantle responded with 10 of the next 11 goals, led by 19 points in the last term and needed a goal from Lachie Schultz in final 80 seconds to win the game. There goes another theory.

4) SUN RISES, AGAIN. Gold Coast loses Rising Star favourite Matt Rowell with a shoulder injury - and then offers the next contender: South Australian Izak Rankine. Almost two years after he was called from SANFL club West Adelaide with pick No. 3 in the 2018 AFL national draft, Rankine put away all the frustration from his injury-stalled run with the Suns to deliver on expectation with three remarkable goals against Melbourne at the Sydney Showgrounds on Saturday night in his AFL debut.

5) FOOT IN MOUTH. If, as one of his ruck opponents declared during the week, West Coast ruckman Nic Naitanui is "lazy and unfit" heaven help the AFL ruckmen when he becomes in tune and motivated.

RULING THE GAME

FROM Western Bulldogs premiership coach Luke Beveridge last week when asked of how his former boss, Hawthorn premiership mentor Alastair Clarkson, had influenced a change in the way AFL games were adjudicated, in particular with the holding-the-ball rule:

We need to be better than that. Make sure we hold our nerve and don't change rules and adjust things on a whim. You need more than a one-event sample size to force change and we are too quick to flinch and it's not helping the game.

We had a flinch last week and we don't need any more ... We do it too often, and it's not acceptable.

'Clarko' has got every right as a statesman of the game to have his opinion and put that across but it's up to the powers at AFL to work out whether or not they flinch. And they flinched.

Sometimes, there is no more to be said. 

Traditionally, the AFL has been reluctant to change direction within a season. The 16-minute rule for quarters introduced in round 1 this season has remained - and with good reason. This will become more evident when the league's most-tormented executive Travis Auld tries to "find a way" to get the fixture to round 12 with quick-fire games while the 10 Victorian-based clubs roll through hubs in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.

The holding-the-ball rule - with its five clauses, subjective demands on "prior opportunity" and "genuine attempt" on disposal and unwritten interpretations - has tormented Australian football since Tom Wills started writing rules for a new game exactly 162 years ago.

Hawthorn has lost both games against Greater Western Sydney and Collingwood since Clarkson put the holding-the-ball rule on the public agenda. Worth the aggravation that has followed? Probably not. But is the rule being "interpreted" better? Differently, certainly.

NEXT 

Carlton v Port Adelaide

Gabba, Brisbane

Sunday, 12.35pm (SA time)

On the original, original AFL fixture released in late October, this match was to have been played at Adelaide Oval in round 7 on Saturday, May 2 as the 150th anniversary game - with Port Adelaide donning the foundation blue-and-white hoops of 1870.

Now, all that remains is the match remains in round 7.

Port Adelaide is the "away" team - on neutral territory at the Gabba in Brisbane.

It will be the 33rd time the clubs have met for AFL premiership points since Port Adelaide entered the national league in 1997 (with the ledger reading 18-1-13 in Port Adelaide's favour).

The history books tell of the clubs first meeting on a Wednesday afternoon in mid-June (the 15th on a cold and wet afternoon) 1881 at Adelaide Oval. Port Adelaide won the toss, Carlton won the match 13.17 to 0.3 and the critics noted Port Adelaide "tended to play the man instead of the ball".

Port Adelaide appears locked into two forced changes - losing midfielder Cam Sutcliffe, who strained his right hamstring before half-time at Metricon Stadium; and former vice-captain Brad Ebert, who was on report from a first-quarter high bump on midfielder Harry Perryman.