Port Adelaide are bold and brave, but also as ordinary as the AFL winter is long | Jonathan Horn

Ken Hinkley’s boys should have beaten Carlton. They blew it, and are now up against it to salvage their season

Port Adelaide simply had to win yesterday. Lose, and it was curtains for season 2022. The task before them was enormous. The Blues have an abundance of talent and play the MCG very well indeed. They were smarting after dropping a game to Gold Coast. And they were desperate to get one back on Port, after their Adelaide Oval humiliation last year. That was the day David Teague’s papers were stamped. There were plenty of Port players in downhill mode – slaloming into easy goals, dishing out the lip. Michael Voss, who was wearing a Port polo top that day, would have reminded his new charges about it.

In 2022, nothing has gone right for Port Adelaide. Charlie Dixon, who cops a lot of flak but who is so important to them structurally, hurt his ankle at training and is still weeks away from returning. Aliir Aliir, the All-Australian centre half-back, wrecked his ankle in the opening round. Ollie Wines last week suffered an atrial fibrillation, which afflicts the elderly and the super fit. Scott Lycett dislocated his shoulder and will be out for three months. Not surprisingly, the results have followed suit. They were systematically dismantled by Hawthorn. They somehow found a way to lose the Showdown. Against Melbourne, they spent the night bombing to a non-existent forward line, right into the arms of the best organised defence in football.