Port Adelaide's Hamish Hartlett tries to get the ball out to Kane Cornes in the trial match against Sydney Swans at AAMI Stadium. Picture: Morne de Klerk. Source: Getty Images
PORT Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley has rated the Power's consistency of effort as the most promising aspect to come out of the summer after the club this week will review a 30-point win against premier Sydney ahead of the home-and-away season.
It is the quality that has eluded Port for the past two seasons of struggle, when the club was let down by quarters of free fall that undid passages of good work.
He has put it down to the desire of the players over summer, but warned not to read too much into the practice matches, in which the Power has claimed scalps of Sydney and premiership contender West Coast in consecutive weeks.
"A really consistent performance on the back of last week - it was really important for us to back up last week's game," Hinkley said.
"Regardless of the result, it was about the way we went about it.
"NAB Cup form, it's really hard to know. All we can take out of it from a club point of view is that we've had a solid pre-season.
"What they've done is made it a tougher decision for us. But what I said early days was we wanted a good number of players available, 30 to 35 players, and now we're in a position where we've got a healthy list which seems to be in good form.
"We're just happy that we've got rucks in form, and big Brent Renouf coming back playing half a game last night (in the SANFL) and he'll play a full game this week.
"We're in a healthy position, which we need to be, because this game is really brutal.
"The last couple of weeks we've been challenged in both games and we've been really strong at the end.
"I couldn't be more pleased at the moment about the way they've gone about it - these boys, for their pre-season, they deserve a pat on their backs.
"But I stress that it's in NAB Cup."
Port's only concern to come out of the match was a knock to the hand of key forward John Butcher, which is feared to have left him with a cracked bone.
But after consulting with the club doctors, Hinkley was confident it would not keep rule Butcher out for round one.
Sydney coach John Longmire was typically pragmatic about the five-goal loss - Sydney has never been known to be flying in the pre-season cups - and said it was difficult to learn much from the match.
"We got some more game time into some of our players who needed it," Longmire said. "I thought they (Port Adelaide) looked pretty sharp.
"But everyone's different in preparation and at this point is hard to measure what everybody's doing.
"It's not until you get well into the season that you know."
PORT ADELAIDE 4.1 7.5 11.6 15.12 (102)
SYDNEY 3.5 4.7 9.11 10.12 (72)
GOALS: Port Adelaide: Boak 3, Young, Mitchell 2, Brad Ebert, Pittard, Colquhoun, Stewart, Lobbe, O'Shea, Thomas, Wines. Sydney: Parker, Goodes 2, Malceski, Jack, Reid, Bolton, McGlynn, White.
BEST: Port Adelaide: Boak, Brad Ebert, Trengove, Hartlett, Carlile, Wingard, Lobbe, Pittard. Sydney: Kennedy, McVeigh, Malceski, Mattner, Jack.
Injuries/reports: Butcher (hand).
Umpires: G Fila, S Hay, H Ryan, C Fleer
Crowd: 5042 at AAMI Stadium.
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