Port Adelaide, 2017: The final act of Kochie and Ken's Bogus Journey

The Port Adelaide Power of 2013 and 2014 offered a level of excitement and hope to the downtrodden that we now associate more with Luke Beveridge and the Western Bulldogs. They went from basket case to a kick away from the grand final in the space of just two years.

However, they’ve not played finals footy in the time since, and so often since then we have asked ourselves, how? How is a team that once seemed destined to be world-beaters unable to perform at the level we thought they could?

The truth is, it was all a mirage. When Ken Hinkley arrived at the end of 2012, he brought great tactical change for Port. They played a game based around speed, hard running, and the slingshot. It was great to watch, but most importantly, the space his gameplan created covered up the skill deficiencies that were and still are common on the Port Adelaide playing list.

No tactic remains ahead of the game forever, and clubs spent the 2014 off-season looking at every way possible to stop the threat of a Port Adelaide juggernaut. They found ways to stop Port’s run, restrict their open space, and ultimately, return them to being an average team once again.

Port have a top ten player in the competition in Robbie Gray, and someone who could one day share that mantle in Chad Wingard. The class of these two is spread too thinly across the team, and the game-breaking talent we thought we saw in others just an illusion – the temporary by-product of a now obsolete gameplan.

The Power’s big problem is that just like the rest of us, they were fooled into thinking they were going to be perennial premiership contenders too, and it led them to adopt a bold, pro-active, and above all risky trade and draft strategy.

Looking back now, Port Adelaide’s list management has been diabolical. Across the 2013, 2014 and 2015 drafts, they made just two selections inside the top 40, and none at all in the top 20.

Trading away high draft selections to secure mature talent isn’t a bad strategy, necessarily. Hawthorn did it for many years and obviously have enjoyed great success. However, you have to target the right players – Hawthorn did, Port Adelaide have not.

In the 2013 draft, Port traded away their first selection to secure Jared Polec from Brisbane – and they got some change back, to be fair to them. Polec hasn’t been a poor addition to the team, but is not a matchwinner. A second-round pick would’ve be fair, and smarter.

Come 2014, Port gave up their first and second selections for Paddy Ryder and no picks back whatsoever. It’s a little harsh to make a call here given Ryder missed the whole 2016 season due to suspension, but I felt then and feel now that Port significantly overpaid.

The Ryder recruitment was meant to solve a major headache for Port and give them someone who could provide another forward target and pinch-hit in the ruck to support Matthew Lobbe. Port made the mistake of thinking Ryder was a forward-ruck, when really he is just a ruck who kicks goal sometimes at a rate of no more than 20 in a season in the last five years.

Ryder ultimately just pushed Lobbe out of Port’s best side. They had a marginally better ruckman, sure, but they had essentially conceded a year worth of new draft talent to get it, and were now paying big bucks to a SANFL player. The move was meant to cure a headache, instead, it gave them fresh pain.

Lastly, in 2015 Port coughed up a top-ten draft pick in order to pick up Charlie Dixon from Gold Coast, and also snagged Jimmy Toumpas for a relatively low price.

Dixon has by no means been a complete flop, but only managed 30 goals last year and at 26 years old, that is about half as much as you would expect from a key forward you traded a top ten selection for. He had injury troubles, sure, but his persistent injuries are not something the world was unaware of when the trade was made.

Toumpas came cheap enough that the deal was worth a punt, certainly, but has offered little since he arrived. At Melbourne he just didn’t fit into the competitive spirit that Paul Roos was trying to create, a change of scenery doesn’t seem to have helped.

So there you have it – three years where Port have had little to no success to speak of at the trade table or the draft, effectively stopping what should have been a steady, patient flow of talent into the team. It has left them without a bright future.

To Port’s credit, they seemed to realise this off-season that they had made a mistake in staying out of the draft so long, and went about trying to rectify that – but they did so in the most baffling and unconvincing way possible.

The first move was to try to force underperforming players Matthew Lobbe and Hamish Hartlett -both of them former vice-captains and on lengthy, lucrative contracts – out of the club. Neither was totally adverse to the idea, but there was one big complication – no one was buying.

That left Port with a salary cap squeeze and no obvious way to secure a better hand at the draft than they held already. So they did something downright mad, and traded away their 2017 first-round pick to strengthen their hand for 2016.

They made a few swaps after that, for some bizarre reason opting to trade out of the top ten in order to move up a pick in the second round. On draft night it left them with a handful of picks: 16, 18, 32 and 33.

Now, these players haven’t even had the chance to play an AFL match yet, and I am by no means foolish enough to write them off as poor decisions before they even get a chance to prove me wrong.

Still, what struck me as strange on the night was the type of players picked up – a key forward in Todd Marshall, and three inside midfielders in Sam Powell-Pepper, Joe Atley and Willem Drew.

Could Port use an extra key forward? Sure, though Marshall is a large amount of development away from having any kind of impact at AFL level – not that that’s uncommon when it comes to tall players.

They could certainly use an extra inside midfielder too, and I would be confident in tipping Powell-Pepper to make a Round 1 debut this year. But three? That is honestly a bit hard to understand.

Perhaps they will all surprise me, as I have often been surprised before.

One thing is certain here – Port have pushed all their chips inon season 2017, and the players that they drafted. They need them to have an instant impact. They’ve given up their 2017 first-rounder to Brisbane to make that happen.

It’s clear 2017 is going to be a significant, critical, decisive season for the Port Adelaide Football Club. This wild ride that began when David Koch and Ken Hinkley arrived at the club – once an Excellent Adventure, now more a Bogus Journey – will come to fruition, either way.

Maybe it will evolve into something great. Hinkley will find a way to create a new and revolutionary game plan, the out-of-form players will find their rhythm, Port will rise back into finals, and teal will become China’s newest national colour.

Or, and I believe far more likely from this vantage point, it will be another season of disappointment for the Port Adelaide faithful – and heads will roll.