Power keeps season alive

Port Adelaide   96 defeated Richmond   83

Port Adelaide has kept its finals hopes alive with a hard-fought 13-point win over Richmond tonight at AAMI Stadium.

The first quarter was the Port Adelaide of old. A regulation takeaway from Kane Cornes, combined with some heavy work in the congestion by Roger James, saw Brendon Lade kick the first goal of the match. Very early on, it was ominous signs for the Richmond that the Power had come to play.

The Tigers settled as Brett Deledio emerged from the pack and sent a spearing ball to Matthew Richardson, who got the away side on the board.

Warren Tredrea was quick to assert his authority on the game, shrugging any would-be tacklers with his strength and doing what he does best – taking contested marks and kicking goals.

But it was the hard working and skillful players of Port Adelaide that set up their 31-point lead at quarter time. Prolific ball-winner, Adam Kingsley, adroitly weaving around his opponents and managing to find Brendon Lade for his second goal epitomized this.

The second quarter started off in similar fashion to the first. Peter Burgoyne intercepted Mark Coughlan’s snap on goal and with his penetrating kick, was able to find Domenic Cassisi on the wing, as Josh Mahoney got on the end of a long ball into the forward 50, kicking his third for the match.

At this stage, the game looked to be sewn up.

Nevertheless, the Tigers were relentless in their pressure. Some hard work moving the ball forward eventually resulted in Chris Hyde kicking Richmond’s first for the second quarter, after a 50-metre penalty was issued against Stuart Dew for not handing the ball back to him.

A flurry of Tiger goals to Wayne Campbell, Richardson, Deledio and Kayne Pettifer clawed the margin back to just 18 points at half-time after the reigning premiers led by 43 at one stage.

Without key defenders Andrew Kellaway and Darren Gaspar down back, and their playmaker, Nathan Brown, it was hard to see Richmond outlasting Port during the second half.

In the wet and slippery conditions of the third term, Richmond silenced their critics and proved they were every chance to win the game. Richardson snapped the first goal of the quarter, and Troy Simmonds brought the margin to within six points after he received a down field free kick after Chad Cornes held his jumper.

After a 35 minutes without a goal, Shaun Burgoyne audaciously took three bounces in the wet and engineered an attack, which ended in Stuart Dew kicking a dribbling goal from beyond the 50-metre arc.

The Tigers responded positively, and perhaps adjusted to the conditions better than the home team, kicking the next two goals, the second kicked by Deledio after winning a dubious free kick, allowing the visitors to take a one-point lead into the final change.

The notorious “premiership hangover” Port Adelaide has been suffering from seemed to translate into a mentality on the field that the game was already won. This complacency is probably why Port Adelaide let the Tigers back in the game.

Goals were extremely hard to come by in the last quarter due to the greasy conditions and the pressure being applied by both teams. It turned into an old-fashioned slog where the most desperate team would come away with the four points.

Plenty of mistakes were made and the umpires issued a lot of free kicks in an effort to maintain the flow of the game.

Richmond’s stunning fight back was quickly ended when Shaun Burgoyne rammed home a goal from 25-metres out, giving the Power back the lead.

However, some brilliance from Matthew Richardson, as he ran around the boundary line from outside 50 and kicked a crucial goal, gave the Tigers a little hope of winning the game.

Then, for one of the few times this year, Port Adelaide did not lie down. Experienced midfielders Josh Francou, Adam Kingsley, Byron Pickett and Peter Burgoyne combined together in the centre of the ground, won the clearance and forced the ball forward. Josh Mahoney, who finished with four goals for the game, won the long ball in from Peter Burgoyne and finally hammered the last nail in the Tiger coffin.

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