PORT Adelaide’s Steve Salopek had hoped there would be more to celebrate after Saturday’s clash with Adelaide.
The dashing Power midfielder played his 50th AFL game after finally breaking the shackles of injury and illness that plagued much of his five years at Port Adelaide.
Salopek said the team’s performance was disappointing but wouldn’t detract from the confidence the young Power squad had gained from a solid start to the year.
“Everyone knows we set ourselves for these big games, it’s a pretty important match for both teams and it’s a game we love to win. It’s very disappointing to come away with a loss but we’ll re-group and head onto next week in Melbourne,” Salopek said.
After the game Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams indicated the Power could expect a tough week on the track after being unable to overcome the flooding tactics employed by Adelaide from the opening bounce.
Port Adelaide was unable to get its running game going, with the Crows restricting the amount of space the Power midfielders had to work in.
“The Crows were fantastic with their pressure. We found it hard to move the ball quickly and that’s what slowed our game down,” Salopek said.
“But we’ll go hard on the track next week and get back to our game plan and style of footy.”
The Power will also spend a lot of time in front of goal in the week ahead after failing to capitalise on their forward entries, especially early in the game. Port Adelaide won the clearances and finished with more inside 50s than Adelaide, but was punished for some errant kicking.
“Everyone knows bad kicking is bad footy and we found it hard to kick goals," Salopek said.
"Our accuracy hasn’t been good in the past so we worked hard on it over the pre-season but it just didn’t show today. We really need to focus on our goal kicking this week at training, both on the run and set shots as well, but it’s something we can definitely improve on.”
Damaging onballer Danyle Pearce was a late withdrawal before the game, suffering the effects of two big weeks of footy, while Toby Thurstans and Peter Burgoyne also received a lot of work from the trainers. But Salopek said the Power’s hard-fought two-zip start to the season was not to blame.
“We had a pretty light week on the track, which helped a lot, but we just struggled to break the lines and run with the ball. Adelaide was great in what they were doing with their pressure and running us down from behind.”
With the game already behind them, Salopek said the Power would be confident heading into their second road trip of the season when they take on Collingwood next Saturday. The 21-year-old said it was a good experience for the younger players and a learning curve for the entire team.
“That game is over now and we lost, but now we need to concentrate on next week and Collingwood at the MCG, on the big stage so we’ll be ready for that.”
