Port Powers Past Demons

Jamie Kloeden reporting for AFANA from Adelaide

After a huge shake up around the club over the summer, Port Adelaide has generated a lot of buzz around town with club supporters looking for a much better performance on the field. New coach Ken Hinkley has been impressing a lot of people with his approach throughout the preseason and whatever it was that he said to his players before the game will certainly impress many more.

Port got off to a flying start kicking the first two goals of the game. The Demons had hardly touched the ball after the first ten minutes giving Port a three goal start before Mitch Clark kicked two goals within two minutes to keep the Demon faithful interested.

By quarter time the lead to Port was 14 points. The margin was flattering to Melbourne who were terrible early but things didn’t get much better for them in the second quarter. Jasper Pittard, Hamish Hartlett and Jay Schulz all kicked Power goals before the Demons finally got one of their own through Geelong recruit Shannon Byrnes. As the game looked more and more like developing into a high scoring shootout, Melbourne began to fall further and further behind.

First gamer Jack Viney was playing a great game on debut for Melbourne. When he snapped a superb goal the momentum shifted slightly and Cameron Pederson followed with another shortly after to reduce the deficit to just 20 points. Once again Port hit back by peppering the goals late in the quarter and an Andrew Moore goal left the half time margin at 29 points.

For Demon fans, it was an ugly game from this point on. While Jeremy Howe took some high flying marks and Viney continued to show that he will be a star of the future, they found themselves lacking stars for the present as the Power stormed ahead. The third quarter saw Port dominate with 11 scoring shots to a solitary point for the hapless Demons. Gun recruit Angus Monfries kicked two goals for the quarter and Oliver Wines, the young draftee that has Port thinking they might have a Jack Viney of their own, kicked his first goal in AFL football. Veteran Kane Cornes continued a strong first up game with a rare goal of his own to finish the quarter and head to the final break with a 64 point lead.

Port players continued on their merry way in the final quarter and while Jordie McKenzie managed to rove the pack and snap truly for a rare Demons highlight, Jay Schulz kicked his fourth for the game and Campbell Heath finished it all off with the 19th Port Adelaide goal of the game. Heath is a great story as he has previously played just two senior games after being on the Sydney Swans list for four years and this goal was his first.

Another talking point to come out of the game was the incredible high flying mark that Schulz took in the second quarter. The mark appeared to have been taken over the goal line but slow motion replays proved inconclusive and the mark was paid, meaning that after Round One we already have a serious contender for Mark of the Year. The AFL will certainly need to consider some additional cameras on the goal line because if a mark like this - way past the goal line - was awarded in a close Finals game, all AFL fans would want to ensure that the correct decision was to be made.

Round Two will see both teams play on Saturday night. Port Adelaide host Greater Western Sydney at AAMI Stadium while Melbourne will do some serious soul searching during the week before fronting up to face Essendon at the MCG.

Scoreboard
Melbourne     3.1  7.2  7.3   8.6   (54)
Port Adelaide 5.3 11.7 16.13 19.19 (133)

Best Players
Melbourne:     Viney, McKenzie, Grimes, M Jones
Port Adelaide: Hartlett, Wines, Schulz, Cornes, Stewart, Boak, Ebert