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This year’s fashionable flat track bully has pulled off a recruiting spree to rival any in recent years. Port Adelaide had an up and down 2017, but if all goes to plan, the ups will be much higher next season.
Since having their heart ripped out in the first week of finals, it seems Port Adelaide’s brains trust has been busy working out how to make their club better.
The knock on the Power was obvious: their system couldn’t match the best teams in the competition. Port Adelaide torched the also-rans of 2017, putting up 51.1 points per game worth of margin in their 13 outings against the bottom 10. To put that into perspective, Port Adelaide’s percentage against these teams was 185.8 per cent – they had the number one points for and points against.
But against the big boys? The teams that matter at the pointy end of the year? Not so good. The Power had a net margin of -18.6 points per game against their fellow top eight teams, ranked 12th in the league. Where they were the best at both scoring and stopping against the bottom 10, Port Adelaide were the 11th best scoring team and 13th best stopping team.
Their high pressing ways simply didn’t hold water against the better teams in the competition. While the magnitude of Port Adelaide’s high-level numbers against the top eight are influenced heavily by two defeats against the Adelaide Crows, the direction is accurate. And after finishing seventh in the official standings this season, there are likely to be as many, or more, top eight opponents coming the Power’s way in 2018.
Why did it break down? It’s hard to say using numbers with what we mortals have available, so the eye test will have to do. Port Adelaide was a predictable team. The opposition knew they would look for the right half forward flank, and set up their press with an extra man hovering around the centre square, and keep a relatively wide open stance at stoppages. They knew Charlie Dixon would crash the pack, and that Justin Westhoff would slip a kick off the play if a couple of quick goals were conceded.
Predictability is fine, particularly when the system works so well. Port Adelaide’s +8.4 inside 50 differential and +2.1 minutes of time in possession per game shows the system works. But when the best teams helmed by the best coaches get a look, they have the players to take away what Port Adelaide want to do.
We’ve been here before with Port Adelaide, or more specifically with Ken Hinkley’s Port Adelaide. After their surge up the ladder in 2013 and 2014, the Power languished outside of the eight, their rebounding-centric system pulled apart by opposition coaches. It appeared Hinkley was a one trick pony; I called the situation as such prior to this season.
One of the great intrigues heading into next season is whether 2017 was a proverbial flash in the pan. Now the Power have been reinvented as a high pressing force, is the system capable of carrying them beyond the first week of finals?
This makes Port Adelaide’s last few weeks all the more interesting. The Power are in a fascinating demographic sweet spot: a dozen players aged 24.5 to 28 heading into 2018, most of them in the best 22. Port’s veteran class is populated with quality too; Justin Westhoff, Paddy Ryder, Robbie Gray and Travis Boak fill out the old man contingent.
At a macro level the Power are still a young team, ranked just 11th on average age (excluding rookies). But in a games-played sense, the Power have built, sneakily, to a level consistent with a contender. Heading into 2017 the Power ranked sixth for average games played, ahead of any team you care to mention. Their window is open.
So, Port Adelaide got busy, and raised their 2018 ceiling higher with three astute additions. Let’s deal with them in turn.
Tom Rockliff remains an influential inside-oriented midfielder, recording six clearances, six tackles and 10 contested possessions in his last season for Brisbane. He will surely free captain Travis Boak to play more football as a high-pressure half forward. Boak was tried out in that role throughout 2017, and given the smallball ways of the league he would certainly be shifted out of a full-time midfield role next season. Rockliff himself will complete a thoroughly potent starting inside midfield division with Ollie Wines and Brad Ebert. Slamming Sam Powell-Pepper will be free to play the fourth man, and steamroll his way out of congestion.
(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
Steven Motlop is enigmatic. Enigmatic is exactly what the workmanlike Port Adelaide 22 needs. I have been a Motlop flip-flopper, as have many, and I’m still not convinced his best outweighs his worst. We saw both versions of Motlop this season; a handful of awful games around the middle of the year, and a stellar finals campaign where he played more of a wingman-distributor role.
Ultimately, Motlop has averaged 20 disposals and 1.2 goals per game over the past four seasons. Only five players did that this year: Patrick Dangerfield, Dustin Martin, Dayne Zorko, Chad Wingard and Tom Lynch (Adelaide). Planting him on the half forward line and rotating him through the middle with Wingard looks a potent mix on paper.
Rockliff and Motlop will help Port Adelaide build an attacking group with as much flexibility as any in the league. That’s important, as we discussed last week.
The last of the trio, Jack Watts, can be viewed as a straight upgrade for Jack Trengove. Trengove, who left for the Dogs in free agency, played as a utility across the forward half for Port Adelaide last season, pinch-hitting in the ruck and flanking for Charlie Dixon at full forward. Watts looms as a plug and play in that position, with a better boot and outstanding football IQ.
To get these guys on board, Port Adelaide has had to make some moves. Jarman Impey, a prospective small ball forward, went to Hawthorn. Brendon Ah Chee has gone to West Coast (for a half-eaten sandwich). Aaron Young looks set to leave for the Gold Coast. Trengove is now a Dog. The manoeuvring has so far net them one third-round pick in next year’s draft.
Impey, Ah Chee, Young and Trengove or Rockliff, Motlop and Watts? I know which group I’m choosing, particularly in the context of Port Adelaide’s build as a whole. The exchange period has been chock full of win-now moves for the Power, an appropriate strategy, and one which lifts the collective potential of the group.
Whether that translates to better play in a week to week sense remains to be seen. But we know Port Adelaide’s primary challenge was hanging with the best teams in the competition, and that was going to take an injection of talent. In this respect, there’s little doubt the Power’s dealing has raised their ceiling and kept their name in the conversation for finals – or more – next season.