PORT Adelaide's inspired third-quarter fight back against Essendon wasn't enough to erase Matthew Primus' disappointment at his team's poor first half that was a key factor in Saturday's 25-point loss.

The Power outscored the Bombers five goals to one in the third term to trail by just two points at three-quarter time, but Primus admitted his side was fortunate to be in that position.

"You could argue that at half-time it should have been a hiding, we should have been 60 points down with the amount of ball that they had inside 50 and opportunities to score," Primus said.

"But for that not to happen and for the players to believe in themselves and believe in the platform that they've set themselves fitness and strength-wise … I thought it was terrific for the group. In the end we had a chance to win the game and that is very pleasing.

"That's something they've got to be proud of doing, but you can't afford to give the opposition that many chances early and that often and come in at half-time and still be in the game."

[ Related: Match Highlights ]

Port managed 45 inside 50 entries to Essendon's 63 for the match, but Jay Schulz made the most of those limited opportunities to finish with four goals.

"I thought Jay competed well, but we probably weren't able to get Dustin [Fletcher] out of the way enough," Primus said.

"Jay's been in good form and it would have been nice to have [John] Butcher out there too helping out."

The Power's inefficiency with the ball coming out of their defensive 50 was an issue for Primus even after last week's thrilling win against St Kilda and it was a problem again on Saturday.

"That didn't improve, we've got some work to do there, and between the arcs also," he said.

"Probably up until the last five or six minutes the game was right on the line, but we just made some really poor decisions from the word 'go' that really cost us. It cost us the game, it cost us scores and it cost us playing the game in the opposition's half a lot.

"We'll just keep teaching our players what to do in certain situations."

[ Related: Quarter by Quarter match report ]

Chad Wingard copped a poke to his left eye and was subbed out of the game at half-time with blurred vision, but he is not expected to miss next week's home encounter with the Sydney Swans.

The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL