PORT ADELAIDE coach Ken Hinkley says his side has enough time this season to rectify its issues against the better teams, but lamented the load being carried by too few in the line-up.
Hinkley’s outfit was outpressured and punished from repeated intercept marks against a Melbourne outfit on Thursday night that was looking to respond after losing two of its last three matches.
Port has now lost to each of the teams that make up the competition’s top four, having slipped to fifth after the 31-point loss at Adelaide Oval.
“We’re not quite as good as what we need to be at the moment,” Hinkley said after the game. “We’ve got to keep working at it because we’ve been in those games and been capable to be as good as those teams we’ve played against but over four quarters that has been our challenge against the best teams.
“We haven’t been able to do that at this point but I’m confident we can and eventually you’ve got to start to deliver on that.
“There is certainly enough time, we just need to get the people that we need. Some of the people we’ve already got so I’m not complaining about who we haven’t got available to us, we just need to get a bit more polish about the way we’re doing things.
“Sometimes you look a bit off and the times we look off have been against the better teams. We believe we can still be a challenger in this competition and that’s our opportunity.”
Already missing Robbie Gray, Orazio Fantasia and Xavier Duursma among others, Port’s loss was further soured by a knee injury to Zak Butters who was making his return after a lengthy stint on the sidelines with ankle and knee problems.
Butters left the field in the third quarter after landing awkwardly when marking the ball and was subbed out of the game.
The loss also ruined the celebration of Steven Motlop’s 200th AFL game.
Hinkley explained that his side was battling with injuries to key players and others who haven’t been at their best at periods through the season, and he said too much had been left to too few.
“We’ve had a few people who haven’t been at their best or most consistent form. I think we’ve been ok at times, clearly we’re fifth so we’ve been in a position to beat the best teams but you’ve got to have more numbers in your favour than against and at the moment we’re leaving it to a few too few,” the coach said.
“We’ve been banged up a bit and we haven’t been able to play with the consistency we’d like with the group we’d like. A lot of teams have had those challenges but we just need to get some pieces in there together and let them play some footy together.
“We’re really optimistic that if we get together, they can certainly play at a high level.”
As well as being beaten in the contest on Thursday night, Port continually turned the ball over with rushed delivery to its forwards.
An organised Melbourne defence picked off a number of intercept marks and got the ball going the other way.
Hinkley said it was as much to do with the pressure applied by the Demons’ midfield as it was the quality of their backline.
“We couldn’t get any clean ball going into our forward half. They were able to get pressure on us… the intercept stuff really set them up in the first three quarters and the last quarter they just dominated the last quarter,” he said.
“We knew the strength of Melbourne’s defenders so we wanted to make sure they didn’t get the advantage in the air.
“They got too many metres off that play and were able to execute way better than we were across the course of the night.”
After just five days between games, Port Adelaide’s players will now have a few days off before returning to prepare to face St Kilda in Melbourne next week.
