Round 9 – North Melbourne v Port Adelaide: Port’s forwards stand tall in Roo-molition

Port Adelaide Power took another step forward in its quest for a top-eight finals berth after a 17.13 (115) to 6.10 (46) win against a hapless North Melbourne Kangaroos at Hobart’s Blundstone Arena on Saturday afternoon.

 

The Power set up its 69-point win after an opening quarter six-goal burst and despite the Roos matching its opponents in the middle quarters, Port powered on in the final term with seven goals.

 

Tall forwards Todd Marshall, Mitch Georgiades and Jeremy Finlayson combined for eight goals while stand-in captain Ollie Wines booted two himself to go with 32 possessions and being back to his 2021 Brownlow Medal winning ways.

 

Sam Powell-Pepper continued on his career-best year to date with stints in the ruck and a presence in, around, under and out of the packs.

 

Connor Rozee’s rich vein of midfield form rolled on with another 20-plus touches in a role where his ability to sprint away from the contest, ball in hand, is Chris Judd-like and Karl Amon provided run and his deep left-foot kicking was a feature.

 

The Power’s forward line function was impressive where a ‘horse-shoe’ pattern emerged whereby a hole was left on offer for any of the six forwards to lead into.

 

Sure, it was ‘only North Melbourne, but this forward line strategy will be watched with interest, especially against the better teams such as Geelong Cats this Saturday afternoon at GMHBA Stadium.

 

Port coach Ken Hinkley said his team are in much better form as opposed to the one that struggled to an 0-5 start.

 

“(We’ve been) incredibly resilient, by how we’ve stuck at it,” coach Ken Hinkley said.

 

“We believed we could still turn things around. We’re certainly not solved but we’re better than we were.

 

“We didn’t get distracted by the ladder, which was hard not to because it said zero and five.”

 

 

NORTH MELBOURNE         1.3      3.7      5.9       6.10 (46)
PORT ADELAIDE                6.5      8.8     10.11    17.13 (115)

 

GOALS
North Melbourne: Zurhaar 3, Larkey, Thomas, Powell
Port Adelaide: Georgiades 3, Marshall 3, Finlayson 2, Duursma 2, Motlop 2, Wines 2, Byrne-Jones, Powell-Pepper, Farrell

 

BEST
North Melbourne: Zurhaar, Davies-Uniacke, Anderson
Port Adelaide: Wines, Powell-Pepper, Rozee, Amon

 

INJURIES
North Melbourne: None
Port Adelaide: None

 

LATE CHANGES
North Melbourne: Jy Simpkin replaced in selected side by Kyron Hayden
Port Adelaide: None

 

SUBSTITUTES
North Melbourne: Charlie Lazzaro (unused)
Port Adelaide: Orazio Fantasia (unused)

 

 

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