NO pain, no glory. Travis Boak says there was "lots of pain" from Port Adelaide falling short with an AFL preliminary final appearance in Season 2020.

How much glory follows in 2021 all depends on how that hefty pain keeps burning through an even longer and more demanding campaign this year.

Boak, the standout player with his 27 disposals (21 in the first half) and 12 score involvements during Port Adelaide's 52-point win against North Melbourne at the Docklands on Sunday, adds his team-mates are up for the challenge. And it shows.

Port Adelaide is still everything the "look of the game" guardians at AFL House want - an attacking-minded side that can crack the watershed 100-point barrier while keeping the tumblers spinning fast on the scoreboard.

Kicking six goals from the 15th minute to the siren of the second term - with North Melbourne responding across these 17 minutes with a just the lone behind from Collingwood recruit Jaidyn Stephenson in time-on - blew out a four-point margin to a very safe 40.

Port Adelaide was capable of such game-breaking blitzes last season when it re-established its credibility as a top-four contender. But this year there is much more than quick releases from stoppages, particularly in the midfield zone. There also is that exhilarating, lightning-fast transition from deep defence to the goalfront. Behind-the-goal vision of Port Adelaide's work from kick-ins will prove very fashionable with AFL television directors this season.

And there is more than Port Adelaide repeatedly living to the Hail Mary play of the long kick sticking to key forward Charlie Dixon's outstretched hands while the All-Australian is repeatedly being sandwiched between a pair of defenders.

There is a growing second option: Todd Marshall's five marks, three scores (2.1) from four attempts and seven score involvements were more than a reassuring set of figures on the charts. But the immediate change to the Port Adelaide attack is from the presence of Essendon recruit Orazio Fantasia who does - as forwards coach Nathan Bassett says - make every opportunity become a score. 

Fantasia's eight shots on goal - for 4.4 - underline a new dynamic force at Port Adelaide's goalfront. The so-called 50-50 groundball is more likely to be converted to a chain-like goalscoring opportunity for Port Adelaide when Fantasia is involved.

Port Adelaide certainly played to its agenda when it dealt with the predictable energy its North Melbourne rivals carried to the contest during the first term when a new gang of Kangaroos sought to make solid first impressions to new coach David Noble.

Conceding 50 inside-50 entries, 20 in the first term, to North Melbourne is not like the Port Adelaide of 2020 even if Tom Jonas' division gave up just nine goals. It might be a reflection of a game that has had its rule book touched up again to promote attack against defence. This makes the new roadblock in the Port Adelaide defensive 50 - tall Sydney recruit Aliir Aliir - even more valuable for his uncanny reading of the opposition waves and his intercept marks.

In a season in which Port Adelaide has to follow up its 2020 form with even more to go further in the premiership race, the most assertive statement made by Boak and his team-mates is about their eagerness for success. The pain they carry from 2020 (and a few other seasons) will only do so much in the search for glory.

"Now it is up to us," adds Boak.

At least everyone in the AFL system today knows this crew of Port Adelaide players is, as the former skipper says, "up for the challenge".