PORT ADELAIDE assistant coach Nathan Bassett has described Geelong as the best side his has come up against in 2020.
The Cats dominated from start to finish to inflict a 60-point loss on Port.
Bassett said the washup of the game was pretty simple: it was a poor day.
“Geelong were very good and we were poor,” he said in a press conference on Tuesday.
“Our energy was down right from the start of the game.
“We were poor in the contest and we got well beaten.
“We had a lot of players down on form or performance on the weekend.”
Bassett said it was hard to pick why the team appeared so flat on the night but he ruled out the congested fixture because the side had six days to prepare for the game – it’s longest break in weeks.
But he explained Port Adelaide had shown improved resilience this season and he expected an improved performance on Saturday against Hawthorn.
“It’s something we addressed straight away,” he said of the lack of energy.
“It’s hard to know exactly why. Sometimes these things just happen. We look for answers but there’s not really a lot of data around to give us a good answer.
“Geelong are very well organised and they’re the best team we’ve come up against so far this year.
“When you put out a performance where you lose by 10 goals, there’s always a red flag and a place for concern but we’ve shown much better resilience this year, we’ve fought through some tougher games where we haven’t been playing our best footy and hung in there to win – this wasn’t one of them.”
The Cats restricted Port to just four goals on Friday night with none of the club’s forwards able to have much of an impact.
And while much of the focus has been on Charlie Dixon’s lack of goals, Bassett does not subscribe to the theory that if you stop Dixon, you stop Port Adelaide.
“There’s been plenty of games where Charlie hasn’t kicked goals this year and we’ve won,” Bassett said.
“Charlie could have kicked nine goals on the weekend and we still would have lost. We were well beaten for the entire game.
“Charlie didn’t have a good game but he’s been a very good performer for us this year.”
Bassett said Brad Ebert was in the frame for selection this week but the final side would not be announced until Friday night.
