Port punish Tigers at the Bay

Another fine Sunday down at the Bay with a big challenge in Port Adelaide confronting us, and it turned out to be another close contest that again could have gone either way. With Jonty Scharenberg and Brett Turner out of action with a couple of medium term injuries, an opportunity presented itself to Brady Searle for the first time this season and Cooper Horsnell.

We let ourselves down with some poor stoppage work in the first quarter and again our fundamentals at times were poor. This left us trailing Port at the first quarter break and for the remainder of the game.

Our second quarter started well, with our mids getting on top and giving our forwards an opportunity to score, and we were able to narrow the margin at half time. Unfortunately we weren’t able to sustain the scoreboard pressure for the entire quarter and we allowed Port to score late in the quarter after we had control of the game.

The third quarter turned out to be a really good battle, with both teams going goal for goal. Lachie Hosie managed to narrow the margin to one point just before the siren. With a number of close games over the past few weeks, we knew that Port would be coming out after the break wanting to take the game to another level.

With an early goal in the last quarter, Port extended the lead to seven points and we were unable to impact the scoreboard until midway through the quarter. A couple of late shots in the quarter bouncing the wrong side of the post meant that we weren’t able to escape this one, and it reinforced that our fundamentals are costing us at critical times in the game and we need to focus on this going forward.

Once again it was fantastic to see so many of our supporters at ACH Group Stadium on Sunday evening and we look forward to seeing you all at Prospect Oval on Mothers Day this weekend.

– Brett Hand, Senior Coach

Goal kickers: L. Hosie (5), C. Gerloff, R. Holder, C. Horsnell, L. McBean