Former Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley is arguably the most equipped to dissect his old club's poor Round 1 performance against North Melbourne, saying that the defence "looked off".
The Power entered a new era under Josh Carr on Sunday, taking the reign from Hinkley after a 13 years as senior coach.
However, Carr's debut game didn't go as planned, with the club going down to the Kangaroos by 46 points at Marvel Stadium.
"North Melbourne was due," Hinkley said on SEN.
"I thought Port would win. I'm on record of saying that I thought Port would win and win comfortably. Don't watch pre-season form, it's the worst thing you can do.
"What I did notice, as the old Port coach and someone who doesn't have much contact with anyone around the club now, is that their defence looked off a little bit, and that's a new system that Josh is implementing.
"They can look half a yard off, and you can look half a paddock off. They gave up 119 marks. We as a football club were always very good at stopping and denying marks for the oppo. That's not Port, and that's not the way they play."
Hinkley also began assessing some of Port Adelaide's prime movers, suggesting that when the likes of Zak Butters and Connor Rozee don't have big games, they are a different team.
"Their better players are really, really critical. They have to play at a really big level, and they didn't get great games from Aliir Aliir, from Connor (Rozee) and Zak (Butters) – they were okay, but they weren't great games," he added.
"Hornet (Jason Horne-Francis) - limited pre-season, he's had 10 possessions. Miles Bergman missed the last game.
"Don't panic, don't go crazy, first game, Josh's first go. I'm sure there's plenty of things to come that will be much, much better than that for Port.
"It just goes to show, your best players; you get them playing well, you're in much better shape."
