HINKLEY STUNNED BY POWER FAILURE

Adelaide: Shell-shocked Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley says it’s impossible to adequately describe the pain of his club’s preliminary final flop.

The Power were trounced by 71 points by the Western Bulldogs on Saturday night in a performance Hinkley described as a “disaster”.

“It’s clearly just total disappointment,” he said.

“This game, you’re into it, you give everything you have got – coaches, staff, everyone, it’s the whole footy club.

“We all work so damn hard to get where we want to go and it gets ripped away from you, it gets ripped out of your hands. And there’s nothing more you can say other than you are totally disappointed … it’s real and it hurts.”

The Power have now lost consecutive home preliminary finals, with the defeat to the Dogs following last season’s six-point loss to Richmond.

And Hinkley conceded the successive failures could lead to a sudden drop-off in future seasons. “They can,” he said. “Everyone starts at this footy club believing that we’re capable of winning the premiership in 2021. And when you get to this stage and you fall short by one step and don’t make it to that final game, it does hurt.

“It hurt last year … it hurts every year when you get to this stage.

“You have got to just continue to work at it and you have got to continue to improve. It becomes an easy drop off for you if you’re not willing to work.”

Port were 37 points down at quarter-time and a whopping 58 points behind at half-time.

“Shocked that we played poorly? Yeah, probably,” Hinkley said, adding: “When you fall short, nothing feels good.”