It was marketed as a grudge match. It pitted the then-premiership favourites against what had been a ghost of a team. But for the first hour or so, it was a procession. Few saw it coming, least of all Hawthorn. Port Adelaide were in attack mode, they flew the gates and they annihilated the Hawks. Early in the second term, it was torrential, and it was surely all over.
At one stage, Port led by 71 points. “We need to pull our head out of our arses” James Sicily told Channel 7 at half-time. And to their credit, the Hawks finally got their hands on the ball, and for a fleeting moment in the final term the biggest comeback in the history of the sport was very much in play. But when Willie Rioli’s taunt of Changkuoth Jiath earned him a face full of turf and a follow-up free kick, he booted the ball into the Barossa and the Power were home, winning 18.13 (121) to 14.7 (91).
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Port needed an occasion and a performance like this. Throughout the opening month, the Ken Hinkley era seemed to be spluttering to an end. They couldn’t have been flatter in the Essendon game, at a ground they normally excel at. They were then well handled by St Kilda, their bunnies for so many years.
It’s worth asking – where has this been all year? Where had they been storing all this energy and dash? But Sunday night was a reminder of how good this Port Adelaide team can still be when they’re fully charged, when they’ve been written off and when that midfield is in full offensive mode. They’re a team that rides emotion, rolls the dice and feeds off its crowd. And when that stacked midfield is fully cranking and when their pressure game is fully dialled in, they’re unstoppable.
They were treated to an excellent game from their captain on Sunday. Since becoming skipper, Connor Rozee has sometimes presented as a player carrying the weight of the club’s woes on his shoulders. He’s been a subdued figure this year but Hinkley sent him to half back with immediate effect. He racked up a lot of early touches, got his confidence back and was suddenly swooping and slicing from one end of the Adelaide Oval to the other.
Likewise, Jason Horne-Francis has been a frustrated footballer for much of the opening month. But he was like a snorting bull on Sunday night, dominant in the air, below his knees and on the spread. And Zak Butters was his typical industrious, antagonistic, scampering self. In the corresponding home-and-away game last year, he played one of the great last quarters, racking up 17 touches and breaking his team out of jail. There’s an urgency to his game, and he’s constantly haring around, darting and provoking – which is exactly what they’ve been missing.
Speaking of provocation - one was entitled to be a bit cynical that this was promoted as one of the marquee Gather Round matches, the final bout on the card. The AFL will fine you $20k for waving your arms (and a few grand for giving the bird to feral imbeciles) and then promote the living bejesus out of the rematch. That’s the AFL - judge, jury, moral arbiter and promoter. The least they could have done was give Kenny a cut of the gate takings.
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All up, Gather Round was great. On Wednesday, the AFL and state government hosted a dinner for journalists and broadcasters, which featured a magnum of Penfolds worth somewhere in the vicinity of $60,000. Judging by how many times those present spruiked the magnificence of the festival, the South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas and the AFL, it was clearly money well spent. Eddie McGuire likened it to the Super Bowl, and said it should stay in South Australia “until people get bored”. At one point, the premier spoke of “the rich tapestry of humanity” Gather Round brings.
Settle down Peter. Adelaide is an ideal city for a festival of this nature. And there was some high-quality football played over the weekend, including at Norwood Oval where Brisbane came from a long way back to run all over the top of the Western Bulldogs. The Lions have been slow out of the gates in most of their fixtures this year, but once that midfield clicks into gear, they’re a team to be reckoned with.
Likewise, on opening night, the home side raced to an early lead, the crowd was cackling, and the Crows had their swagger back. But when they’re cornered, teams of the quality of Brisbane and Geelong will change things up and probe for soft spots. They never panic and they’re often at their most dangerous when they’re five or six goals down. That sort of deficit is an invitation to switch things up and take risks. When you’re 71 points down, as Hawthorn discovered, all you’re doing is shovelling against an avalanche.
