I think this might be the key which is funny given he is the “4th wheel”. He killed us last time.Port is a massively emotional team. They have loads of talent, but not much of a system, it's all reliant on their confidence and if things start going against them, they drop their bundle.
We saw that when they got belted by the Lions at Adelaide Oval - the Lions kicked 13 goals to Port's 3 in quarters 2 & 3. Butters still had 35 and 8 clearances, but it wasn't enough. Brisbane lost the hitouts but belted them in clearances and contested possessions. A few weeks later Gold Coast did the same. Wines very quiet in both of those games.
In some ways I am glad it is at AO as it gives us a chance to get off to a good start (which we have been pretty good at) and not only quieter the crowd but get that “nervous energy” going…
When I look on paper I get very nervous about how on earth we close down the 4 MF. I don’t see a match up. Maybe Atkins on JHF given he plays forward a lot and potentially Bowes could run with Butters or Rozee? But then we have Wines who is back to best form…
And of course our structure doesn’t really lend itself to shut down roles too much given we will want Danger, Stewart and Bruhn to be in CBA the most - none of them will go with other players - but maybe they are good enough to mitigate clearances?
Overall I feel good based on your notion of playing an emotional team that is breakable…but I just can’t see how we hold that MF out for 120 minutes - and they only need 30m to put scoreboard pressure on