Port, the Bulldogs and why young teams are inconsistent

I was enthralled by Port Adelaide’s rise and their forlorn shot at the title against Hawthorn last September.

What was not to love? Port had climbed off the canvas after people had been stupidly comparing them to moribund Fitzroy. Travis Boak had eschewed the easy option of post-premiership Geelong to honour a commitment and gut it out to fix the Power.

They had fostered a community and christened a picturesque new oval. Their style of play was zippy and eminently watchable. Chad Wingard and Angus Monfries were guns and Ollie Wines was a complete young man you could marry your daughter off to.

Coach Ken Hinkley was a smart, personable guy tying all of this together without resorting to slapping spectators.

And then in the preliminary final they almost pulled off the greatest upset comeback since ‘Dewey defeats Truman’ (according to the newspapers).

Yet I hesitated to pick the Power for the logical progression of fifth in 2013, third in 2014, grand final in 2015.

It was a gut feel, based on them all being so young and unconventional. I’d seen it before somewhere, where a youngish team comes out of left-field, almost makes it to the top in a rollicking campaign, and then when it comes time to make the final leap they mysteriously don’t. Examples on a postcard, please, or in the comments.

Maybe I just thought it was too much of a fairy tale for Port to make it to the top. They weren’t, I don’t know, tough enough for the pinnacle, not physical enough to lock things down when the vibe is against them.

Let’s not forget how inconsistent Port were in 2014. They began the year full of fire and emotionally beat Hawthorn. By winter they were struggling and almost lost to Melbourne at home. Then in September they were dismantling Ross Lyon and taking it to the Hawks once more.

I’d seen this sort of thing with the Bulldogs teams of 1997 and 1998, if you’re into obscure examples only our supporters would know about. Hawthorn did something like this in 2001, as did Collingwood the year after. I’d also had a parallel look at the concept of young, inconsistent teams with the Bulldogs’ simultaneously sublime and disastrous start to 2015.

The form of young teams seems dependent on their mood of the week. They hit the highs but lose dreadfully on their uninspired days.

Sports teams, of course, generally do have to be happy to win. It is the underlying force to what we call momentum. I understand that Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant despised each other, but realistically a winning culture comes from players who feel confident about their lot, who are all cooperating in the same direction, in rare cases who would die for each other (although outside of Australia free agency has killed the whole brotherhood aspect of teammates). Happy vibes make winning ball clubs.

But with young teams, seemingly more so. For them a good run of form seems to exist under a type of trance, a bubble that can unexpectedly burst at any moment. They have the athleticism but not hardened bodies or the relentless, well-trained mentality to win week after week.

Meanwhile, teams like Hawthorn 2014, admittedly an outlier of excellence, shouldered some tight losses and multiple off-field dramas to grind out wins regardless.

Round 5 was the high water mark for up-and-coming teams Western Bulldogs and Port Adelaide. The Bulldogs won in Sydney, and Port professionally took Showdown 38 a week after their breathtaking blitz against the Hawks. They were collectively 7-3.

Then the Dogs allowed the anti-miracle to occur against St Kilda, and Port lost three bizarrely lacklustre matches in a row to West Coast, Brisbane and Richmond.

They have both now dropped at least two matches that should have been beneath them and in the strange, all-in jumble that is season 2015, the two showed preliminary signs of being left behind.

Yet they both clicked again on the weekend, and now play against each other in Adelaide in Round 10. One has the chance for two wins on the trot and a chance to become the apple of the competition’s eye once more.