Port’s power of doubters

Port’s power of doubters

GuyWhoLikesSport

The greatest example of the power of “nobody believes in us” is Muhammad Ali knocking out George Foreman in Zaire.

Foreman was the younger, bigger, stronger man fresh off beating the piss out of the Kenny Norton and Joe Frazier.

His destruction of Frazier was particularly troublesome for Ali fans, as he dropped the once indestructible Frazier six times in the first two rounds.

There was, frankly, no reason to pick the ageing, post-suspension Muhammad Ali who had just eked out wins against Norton and Frazier.

Nobody believed in Ali. He showed up the non-believers.

Nobody believed in Port Adelaide. They showed up the non-believers.

 

Brisbane had a touch of it too, but this piece will focus on Port Adelaide. They’re all emotion, whereas Brisbane is more stoic and system oriented (bar Zorko).

Like Ali, Port Adelaide came in with a plan of how to combat their explosive opponent.

Hawthorn likes to exit contested situations the same was that Kevin Costner tells us JFK’s head moved when he got shot – back and to the left (or right).

Their method is always backwards to go forward. They almost always have a defensive midfield type sitting behind stoppages as both the person to start attacks and as a second line of defence.

Hawthorn’s currency is space. Port didn’t give them any.

In the very first ball up of the game, James Worpel won the clearance going back toward his goal. For the last 12 weeks Hawthorn have had a free runner strolling past to get the ball and start an attack.

In this instance, however, Port squeezed up on everyone and forced Worpel to hack a kick forward, playing into the hands of Port’s poor but experienced defence.

That set the tone for the whole first half.

All of Hawthorn’s post-clearance ball was dirty. Port Adelaide was constantly in Hawthorn’s face. Even the objectionable dangerous tackle free kicks showed that Port was driven by something stronger than just wanting to win.

They wanted to hurt some folks and prove doubters wrong along the way. It was all emotion.

The two key pieces around the ball were Connor Rozee and Zac Butters.

Both were poor against Geelong last week and neither of them had gaudy numbers on Friday night, but the numbers belie what the game showed.

The two of them set an extraordinary physical tone early in the game. As a Richmond supporter I don’t say this lightly: they were Cotchin-esque.

I once wrote that “It was as if Cotchin made a bargain with himself. It would never be easy for him, but it would be fathoms harder for whoever he was playing against.”

Rozee and Butters appeared to make the same bargain with themselves and each other.

They were so mean they made medicine sick.

With the ball, Port effectively played the same game they always play: a territory one.

They want to handball forward from stoppage exclusively and from there they get the ball forward. There’s often not a lot of system to their entries, other than they want a lot of them. Their whole game is built on forward momentum. It was all season, and it was on Friday night.

In a sense not much changed. Except in another sense, with the intent that they brought, everything did. Their heart was in it.

In that first half they felt a bit like a Scorsese movie. There was flash and sizzle as they came in looking like a new team, but the tenets lay at its core.

In the second half as the emotion wore off and tiredness came in, Hawthorn started to find more space and get a little bit more dash in the game, but Port’s effort never waned.

Even though the Hawks managed to get a more space in the second half than they were afforded in the first, Port Adelaide still won the ground ball battle by eight.

For context, Hawthorn was the best ground ball differential team in the AFL across the season. They only lost the ground ball battle three times, only once by more than eight (their loss to Geelong in round 17 where they didn’t show up).

Even when Hawthorn finally got the space that they live on, Port’s effort ensured that they were forced to play left-handed. Port led the race to the fall of the ball which nullified Hawthorn’s run.

But heart and system alone can’t win you finals. You need moments of genius.

Willie Rioli and Jase Burgoyne, in particular, were exceptional.

But one kick I want to highlight is one made by Jason Horne-Francis to Rioli with nine minutes to go in the third quarter.

Port Adelaide was down 39-37, the first time they had been behind all game, and it looked like the Hawks were going to run over the top of them.

Port, through Jase Burgoyne and Rozee, rebuffed an attack and hacked the ball forward, as they usually do. Mitch Georgiades ferociously attacked the ball in the air and it fell into Willem Drew’s hands. Drew, again, looked forward and kicked it around his body to Horne-Francis, the most north-south player in a north-south team.

Horne-Francis, as usual, went straight forward and kicked it into the space that a goal-side Willie Rioli had found himself in. A lesser kick would have led Rioli too far into the pocket and made the set shot difficult but Horne-Francis’ didn’t. Rioli marked 35m out a 45-degree angle and kicked the goal to put the Power back in front.

Port never trailed again.

As that passage illustrated, not much changed for Port except that everything did.

Why?

The power of “nobody believes in us”.

I write a lot about system, stats, and coaching. I believe in it. But late in finals, where all the teams are pretty good, if you can convince your troops that everyone is doubting them and nobody wants them to win then that’s as good as a bulletproof system or the best players.

But this wasn’t the Patriots manufacturing doubt in 2019.

Ken Hinkely didn’t need to do any convincing.

The Port players just had to open Instagram see that Hawthorn had decided they deserved to play in the Grand Final because they’ve been good for 12 weeks.

All Ken had to do was make the chip on his players’ shoulders even bigger than it already was.

His players had to play their usual system with the ball, but without it they had to swarm, hunt, and hurt. Their grudges helped them to do it.

Ken’s grudge was so big that he himself got in the muck. I loved it.

In a footy landscape that has become witheringly corporate, that Ken said after the game “we saw what was said and we responded” was compelling.

Hawthorn being offended is, frankly, the point. Ken wanted Ginnivan, Sicily, Mitchell, and all of the ex-Hawthorn players in media and on channel 7’s commentary team to be offended.

If anything, most of the general public are offended that Ken has a $20k fine for showing some personality.

He and his troops delivered, powered by the most potent force in sports: nobody believes in us.

 

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