PORT ADELAIDE senior assistant coach Michael Voss says Scott Lycett’s performance in the ruck went a long way to the side winning against North Melbourne on Saturday night.
Port got up over North Melbourne by 36 points to retain its place at the top of the AFL ladder with two rounds remaining.
When the sides met last year, the Kangaroos smashed Port by 86 points with ruckman Todd Goldstein dominating out of the centre.
At Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast this time around, Lycett got one back.
“He would have been in our best three players,” Voss said of Lycett’s efforts.
“The challenge was significant. You know our memories are pretty recent to what Todd Goldstein was able to do against us last time so he gave his midfield the ascendancy last time and Scooter went to work pretty hard on that.
“He was able to get dominance and probably got the better of the duel.
“That helped a lot in us being able to win the game.”
Lycett won 27 hit-outs to 23, 12 disposals to nine and five clearances to two, to take the ruck honours on the night.
It contributed to Port’s midfield dominance. It won 38 clearances to 24 including 15 to three out of the centre.
Another factor was the work of midfielders Tom Rockliff, Travis Boak and Ollie Wines, who combined for 94 disposals, nine tackles and 19 clearances.
Boak and Wines also contributed three goals (Boak one and Wines two).
“Any time you’ve got midfield goal kickers your scoreboard tends to tick along nicely,” Voss said.
“Those two have been in some really good recent form – Ollie’s really hit his straps in the last couple of weeks. He’s been in some really rock-solid form and was able to go forward a couple of times and kick a couple of goals, which was really good to see.
“We want to give a couple of different guys looks through midfield and for him to spend just a few minutes inside forward 50 and still kick a couple of goals is really impressive.
“And Boaky’s just carrying on his form. He’s been solid right throughout the whole year and rarely had a dip and he’s just been a really in super competitive reliable form for most of the year.”
Port looks set to be without the dynamic Zak Butters, who has been offered a two-game ban for a high bump which saw Kangaroo Jy Simpkin sit out the rest of the game.
Voss said Butters had been in good form, and was particularly hard at the ball against North.
“We had a bit of a joke last night – we think he’s actually joined Ollie (Wines) and Sam Powell-Pepper as one of our bash brothers,” Voss said of the tenacious forward.
“He’s only wiry, he’s only small but he puts his body on the line, we all cringe when he does because we think he’s going to be hurt, but he has a passion for the contest and when you’re going at the ball really hard, you’ve got to make split second decisions and that’s what’s really unique about our game – whether you win it or you don’t.
“He’s putting himself in positions where he wants to get at the ball and get at the opposition. We love having him in the team because he brings so much energy.”
Next up is Essendon on Saturday evening at Adelaide Oval.
Voss said his side had only the Bombers game and the last game of the regular season against Collingwood to refine its style in preparation for finals.
He said the Bombers would present an ideal challenge going into the business end of the year.
“The one thing we haven’t really payed a lot of attention to is that they’ve got their personnel back,” he said.
“They’ve added some really critical people to their structure and whether that’s Joe Daniher, (Jake) Stringer, (Dyson) Heppell, they’ve added some recent strength to their team so it’ll be a tough one to overcome.
“They’re structurally as sound as any team right now but we’ve put ourselves in a really strong position this season and it’s hard not to look at this and think that we’ve got something really significant to play for and like anything we’re trying to continually build and progress our style and we’re looking to win these next two games when we’ve got some really tough opponents to play against.”
