Wemust playit straight

PORT Adelaide’s ability to convert goals faces its biggest test in three years when it plays dead-eye Geelong at Adelaide Oval tonight under the type of pressure that it has struggled to kick straight.

The Power have ranked 16th for accuracy in three of the past four seasons, nailing just 44 percent of their shots in 2020, while the Cats (50.7) are the second-most accurate side this year.

Three of Port’s most wayward performances this campaign were their trio of defeats, when they booted 6.12, 6.8 and 4.7 against finalists Brisbane, St Kilda and Geelong.

Its worst offenders are Sam Powell-Pepper (26 percent accuracy from 16 shots ), Karl Amon (31.3, 16), Connor Rozee (31.6, 19), Kane Farrell (35.3, 17) and Travis Boak(36.4,22).

Port was also off target in its last final, the 2017 elimination playoff, kicking 10.16 to West Coast’s 12.6 in a two-point defeat after the siren in extratime.

Charlie Dixon kicked 3.6 that night and then captain Travis Boak booted 0.3.

H ink ley said his side spent a lot of time working on its goalkicking and it would need to convert to beat the Cats in their qualifying final. “When you’re in a cauldron here at

Adelaide Oval with 30,000 people … and this will be a tough, close game of football – everyone expects it to be that way in finals – you can’t put that out there at training,” Hinkley said.

“You can practise a lot of things – the skill, the fundamentals, the mental preparation.

“But there’s the pressure of performance and you have to execute under that pressure.

“We lost a game here this year where a team (St Kilda) kicked 12.1 but we’ve also kicked the ball really well at times.

“You’ve got to do it on the night and tomorrow night we’ve got to kick straight if we’ re going to win the game.

“There’s pressure on and sometimes mistakes happen .”

Port has been on a fivematch winning streak since their 60- point smashing by the Cats on August 14 and enters tonight’ s clash off the back of a 16- point victory over eighthplaced Collingwood.

H ink ley said his side was really good and he was proud of what it had achieved this year.

“It takes a long time to get to where we’ ve got to ,” he said.

“You get what you deserve and the boys have earnt the opportunity to finish on top of the ladder.

“We’ve got to move on to the next stage and see where we can go in the finals .”