Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley is faced with the daunting prospect of recasting the Power’s defence, midfield and attack ahead of the Showdown after key players Connor Rozee, Aliir Aliir and Sam Powell-Pepper limped out of Friday night’s win over St Kilda.
Port improved to a 5-2 record on the back of the gutsy performance, but Rozee (hamstring), Aliir (concussion) and Powell-Pepper (knee) were all casualties.
“There was a little bit of carnage,” Hinkley said.
“Aliir is a concussion, so he’ll miss next week, he’ll be in concussion protocols.
“He looked pretty good, to be honest, coming off, but he did the test and didn’t quite get through that.
“So, he’s an out.
“Connor’s got soft signs of a hamstring (injury), but we’ll get a scan and be clear about what that looks like.
“He went back on and couldn’t stay there, so obviously it’s leaning itself towards a hamstring (injury), which will mean he’ll miss a little bit of time probably.
“And Pep, we’re sitting back hopeful to see what scans look like because it looked a bit nasty.
“The medical report is that they’re a little bit hopeful, but we’ll wait and see what the scan says.”
Powell-Pepper landed awkwardly on his right leg at the end of a strong lead in the third quarter and immediately fell to the turf grimacing in pain.
“When you hurt your knee and you can’t go back on … in my history in the game and the amount of times I’ve seen those sort of things happen, it lends itself towards the possibility of an ACL,” Hinkley conceded.
“But the doctors were saying afterwards that there were some promising parts around the way that it tested.
“We’ll wait and see.”
Rozee landed awkwardly during a third-quarter spoiling attempt and got up from the ground grabbing his right hamstring.
The star skipper briefly returned to the ground after treatment, but was clearly hampered by the injury.
Aliir was concussed when he was slung to the ground by Jack Higgins in the second quarter in a tackle that will come under scrutiny by the match review officer.
While Hinkley has new selection dilemmas to mull, the coach also has the ongoing issue of the Power’s inaccuracy in front of goal to deal with.
Port had seven more inside 50s in the first quarter against the Saints, but trailed at the first break after kicking a wasteful 1.8.
“Some parts go down to the opposition, their pressure and what they’re causing you to do, some goes down to skill execution from us, and other parts go down to a little bit of game style where we took some shots from perhaps,” Hinkley mused.
“There’s a sharing of responsibility there.
“I know with the skill part that the boys can’t do any more, and can’t work any harder.
“As a club, we’ve invested strongly into improving accuracy.
“It might not be showing just yet for us, but I’m really confident that we will get a reward.”