Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley says he was "surprised" that his men couldn't match the Western Bulldogs at MARS Stadium on Saturday as they went down by 90 points.
After leading at quarter-time, the Bulldogs piled on 18 goals to three, inflicting pain on the visitors, and recording Hinkley's second biggest loss in his coaching career. The biggest came in Round 1 against Collingwood.
It was also the first time the Alberton club lost at the venue, having beaten the Bulldogs twice in the past decade.
"It's not a surprise that the Bulldogs were able to beat us. It's a surprise to me that we got beat so badly," Hinkley said in his post-match press conference.
"I thought they were in really good form coming in. They were certainly a game we were wary of, how they were playing. Started OK, but once the game got away from us, they grew in confidence.
"It's what happens in a game of football. They looked like they couldn't do anything wrong. We looked like we nearly couldn't do anything right."
Port Adelaide had no answer for the Bulldogs' on-ball brigade, led by ruckman Tim English and midfielders Ed Richards, Tom Liberatore and Marcus Bontempelli.
"They just got dominance around the ball. Their ruck (Tim English) certainly got dominant. It wasn't so much as hitouts; it was just his work rate around the ground, and he helped join in the outnumber," Hinkley said.
"But then their quality of players, they were able to restrict a bit of us. (Tom) Liberatore, (Ed) Richards, (Marcus) Bontempelli - it's a pretty good group that they've got going through there.
"They were able to get ascendancy in the game, they got territory, then they dominated the game."
After a sluggish start and mini resurgence, the Power sit 12th with a squared-off ledger (4-4), and come up against arch-rivals Adelaide in Showdown 57.
"The positive for us is there's a Showdown coming next week. That'll probably certainly help us get our heads back into the battle pretty quickly," he said.
Small forward Willie Rioli may be in contention to miss the contest after an off-ball strike on Bailey Dale is likely to receive attention from the MRO.
