Is Port Adelaide's Bubble Set To Burst In 2022?
Last updated: Feb 22, 2022, 3:12AM | Published: Feb 22, 2022, 3:11AM
Port Adelaide have a lot to prove heading into 2022.
It’s hard to mark a Preliminary Final appearance as a failure, but all season, it felt as though the Power were being successful against the grain, often just sneaking by the eye test by flexing against bad teams.
It can be easy to get caught up in the immediacy of results but put simply, the Power finished 2nd on the ladder and they weren’t the second-best team in the competition at any stage of the year.
Against top 8 teams, the Power were 4-4 with a percentage of 95.91, with wins coming against a depleted Essendon, GWS and Bulldogs outfit, with the 10-point win against Sydney the most impressive.
The qualifying final victory over a similarly over-performing Geelong team was followed by being annihilated at home by the Bulldogs, which summed up some feelings that were directed towards Port Adelaide in 2021.
Realistically, in an albeit inexact, particularly subjective ranking, the Power were the sixth best team last season and were a middling team in many key statistical areas.
RELATED: Betting Ahead- Using AFL Season Projections To Lock In Profit
Having the third-fewest points conceded for the home-and-away season was perhaps area in which coach Ken Hinkley could be proudest of his club for and even that, was perhaps a little misleading.
Only in 7 of the 22 games did Port’s opponent finish with more goals than behinds. Good defensive efforts can force tough shots but over that extended sample size, and through viewing game footage, it becomes clearer that the Power were fortunate to not concede more, rather than possessing great skill.
And to have the Brownlow Medallist and a midfield renowned for its toughness, Port were ranked 4th for tackles and 11th for clearances, although their differential numbers were breaking even with the opposition at worst to indicate that there was some ascendancy to be had in these areas.
Offensively, they were ranked 6th in inside 50s, 5th in goal assists and 8th for marks inside 50, resulting in scoring the sixth-most points across the season as a whole to wrap up the entire ground’s worth of being just “okay”.
It shifts our focus to 2022, where Ken Hinkley will deservedly be under pressure and his team simply have to do something worthwhile in finals to prove that the “pretenders” tag currently placed upon the club, is unfair.
What may have otherwise been an opportunity to address key areas needing improvement, particularly midfield variety and another offensive threat, ended up being another quietly puzzling step towards building future stocks.
Sam Skinner has reinvented himself as a key defender in state football and may be a best 22 player, while Josh Sinn was a draft favourite and has the foot skills and pace to have an immediate impact off half-back for the Power, while taking a flyer on Trent Dumont for depth is perfectly fine.
These nice acquisitions though, didn’t address the key needs of Port Adelaide though, and that’s a problem when trying to assess the playing group for this season.
RELATED: Looking Ahead To The 2022 AFL Rising Star Award
Some may suggest this is overvaluing the effect an off-season can have and that stability in the trade period is more useful than making drastic moves.
Yet, no one could possibly feel aggrieved at the suggestion that the Power really missed a trick, one that other clubs used to become Premiers.
Richmond and Melbourne used trade, free agency and draft periods right before their successes to fill holes and strengthen the areas they wanted to focus on, which resulted in absolute glory.
Port Adelaide, on the other hand, have decided to look internally and use the potential of their young talent to drive them forward.
Certainly, the quality of the youth at the Power cannot be argued against, and is the reason why it’s hard to see this team becoming a bottom-six team in the next half-decade.
With the season less than a month away, more talk has come out around Connor Rozee and Zak Butters becoming more full-time midfielders, with Dan Houston, Riley Bonner and Jackson Mead expected to be around the mark.
Quite obviously, that’s the right move, as Travis Boak, Ollie Wines and Willem Drew were hardly a group that were going to overpower an opposition with skill and craft.
The talent of Rozee and Butters is known, but relying on their bodies is surely too risky if their the team’s trump cards.
Rozee averaged 18.4 disposals in his final 7 games of 2021 working up into the midfield at times, while Butters’ 36-disposal, 6-clearance, 6-tackle effort in Round 2 against Essendon hasn’t been forgotten.
Yet the former seems to always be under an injury cloud, while the latter managed just 12 games last season.
Mitch Georgiades is the forward talent that is expected to breakout in a big way after 32 goals last season, but if the third-year player is the heart and soul of this forward line, is that too much pressure on a 20-year-old?
Charlie Dixon is hardly the dominant force in crunch time as the Power purports him to be, while the addition of Jeremy Finlayson isn't exactly awe-inspiring – surely he can’t move ahead of Todd Marshall and be inconsistent in this team?
If Hinkley were to use Georgiades in a forward role with spurts on a wing, that could be extremely exciting and provide great spacing to play three other key forwards in attack, but the wing positions have probably been the best part of Port Adelaide game style – Karl Amon and Xavier Duursma work harder than anyone else.
The defensive group projects to be unassuming and unheralded, although Aliir Aliir will have pressure to back up his All-Australian season.
Perhaps drafting Sinn will mean we can expect a more dashing, daring Port Adelaide team in transition in 2022, which would certainly create more space in a quicker fashion for the skilled players to work in closer to goal.
RELATED: Are The Sydney Swans Coming Or Going?
Excitement is contagious and that style of play is needed in the way a contender attacks the ball.
In theory, keeping improvement and making tactical adjustments internally is a great idea if the avenue to a successful plan is clearly definable and the playing group is reliable.
That’s the thing about Port Adelaide though, and it’s why 2022 looks to be another season of unreliability and the prospects of pipedreams bursting reality’s bubble.
If Hinkley and the Power can’t clearly lay out their plan to a successful season and most importantly, can’t trust themselves, what chance can the club really have of causing serious damage?
Should Port Adelaide become a team that aims for top-4 finishes in inside 50s, clearances and goal assists, them it would become more obvious that they have fully committed to playing their skilled players in the midfield and would give them a serious point of difference heading into finals.
As things stand, however, there are no signs of tactical development, no signs of full commitment to positional changes and no signs of any true lasting adjustments from the 2021 season.
Sure, a decent set of games in the first two months of the season could put the Power on track for another top-4 finish.
But without any substantial changes, there are no signs that the Port Adelaide Football Club will be anything more than simply, the Port Adelaide Pretenders.
Did you enjoy this article? Join our free mailing list to get the best content delivered straight to your inbox, or join the conversation by leaving a comment below or on the Stats Insider Twitter or Facebook page.
