For us as a club to move forward we should all be shattered, as long as we are saying good effort, tried hard or valiant we are going nowhere.

Players,Coaches and supporters should all be asking how and why we couldn't complete the job and act accordingly.

We need to start winning these games and the fact we lost this one, along with the games against St,Kilda, Bulldogs and the Suns, when all were there for the taking is not great.

We have improved markedly but need to turn these into wins, and shed this losing mentality.

For us as a club to move forward we should all be shattered, as long as we are saying good effort, tried hard or valiant we are going nowhere.

Players,Coaches and supporters should all be asking how and why we couldn't complete the job and act accordingly.

We need to start winning these games and the fact we lost this one, along with the games against St,Kilda, Bulldogs and the Suns, when all were there for the taking is not great.

We have improved markedly but need to turn these into wins, and shed this losing mentality.

true but there needs to be some honest reflection on how far we've come and the valid reasons for not quite getting over the line. its not realistic to expect the side to be playing 4 solid qtrs against the no1 side at this stage. had they not put in effort then yes we should be gutted but for rd 10, a 3 1/2 qtr effort over the top side is very good . we shall demand more but lets not ignore the realities of the teams potential at this stage

true but there needs to be some honest reflection on how far we've come and the valid reasons for not quite getting over the line. its not realistic to expect the side to be playing 4 solid qtrs against the no1 side at this stage. had they not put in effort then yes we should be gutted but for rd 10, a 3 1/2 qtr effort over the top side is very good . we shall demand more but lets not ignore the realities of the teams potential at this stage

spot on

Melbourne Statistic Port Adelaide

127 Contested Possessions 112

291 Uncontested Possessions 245

342 Effective Disposals 279

81.2% Effective Disposals % 76.6%

43 Clangers 44

9 Contested Marks 7

8 Marks Inside 50 8

34 Clearances 37

39 Rebound 50s 26

39 One Percenters 43

5 Bounces 30

9 Goal Assists 11

81.8% % Goals Assisted 78.6%

Sorry for the messy layout - cut and paste from footy wire - but who would seriously have contemplated that we could be so "competitive" in all these stats against the top team so soon.

Beyond my wildest dreams.

A tad more composure at the start and finish, which should come with time - another preseason together and a stable lineup - and we should be the goods.

Well done Mr Roos and all the team.

First 10 minutes and last 10 minutes we got beaten....rest of the game we were the better side.

Absolutely correct.

I just hope the players are not feeling as self satisfied as one too many supporters here. If so we are going to get walloped next week. I'm sure Roos will see this as an opportunity lost. The 4 points were there for the taking.

Roos' presser: each game goes for 120 minutes, they just did it [compete, and put the score on the board] for longer than we did.

I just hope the players are not feeling as self satisfied as one too many supporters here. If so we are going to get walloped next week. I'm sure Roos will see this as an opportunity lost. The 4 points were there for the taking.

i don't think they would be.

Im also sure that roos is a realistic guy

We still need to find a way to score more goals.

How is this for a suggestion? Add Dawes and Hogan.

I was very upset immediately after the game but took the Demon dogs for a walk and calmed down a bit. We were competitive for a large part of the game and Port are sitting on top of the ladder.

We are improving every week and I feel very proud to be a Demon member.

I will be there on QB with my Collingwood supporter husband feeling much more optimistic than previous years.

He mentioned that he is not so confident now so bring on the QB.

Go Dees.

Random thought. My Umpiring stuff-up of the day would have to be the non-call when Tommy ran down Trengove on the wing. Trengove ran the ball out of defence, got caught on the wing, dropped it in the tackle. Both players turned and looked at the umpire waiting for the HTB decision. When the umpire did nothing, Trengove picked up the ball and ran off again. I don't think anyone could believe that one, including Trengove.

Mine was the 'mark' awarded to Shultz in their FP. He had the ball in hand for a mili-second and at no stage controlled it. He goaled from that bit of charity..

Showed the huge improvement in the first, port kick the first 4 goals and look good, this year and now we keep fighting and get into a winning position, previous seasons we probably lose that by 60 plus, even early this year might have been a different story, i have no doubt we will be a top 8 standard team by years end at this rate, may not be reflected in wins but the players now know they can win every single game and are only going to get better.

The umps love to hate us.

I still hate the umps.

Roosy getting stuck into the recruiter/s that were quoted in the famous Tyson/Salem/pick 2 deal was brilliant. Shocked this hasn't been highlighted more by the media.

This was a classic case of journo and other clubs trying to lay the boots in. Kelly may well be a superstar and its unfair to get stuck into him, but the disrespect shown to our club and the players involved was disgraceful.

Tyson is all class. Hard to believe he's played 25 odd games.

We wouldn't have got within a brass razu last season and would have fallen apart after the first 4 goals were kicked against us.

While I'm not "happy" with losing but losing by 20 points to the top team ATM is a huge improvement on previous seasons.

We were in a position to win and couldn't get over the line.

It's another game we will learn from.

(Grimes has to improve his kicking and decision making FAST)

Melbourne Statistic Port Adelaide

127 Contested Possessions 112

291 Uncontested Possessions 245

342 Effective Disposals 279

81.2% Effective Disposals % 76.6%

43 Clangers 44

9 Contested Marks 7

8 Marks Inside 50 8

34 Clearances 37

39 Rebound 50s 26

39 One Percenters 43

5 Bounces 30

9 Goal Assists 11

81.8% % Goals Assisted 78.6%

Sorry for the messy layout - cut and paste from footy wire - but who would seriously have contemplated that we could be so "competitive" in all these stats against the top team so soon.

Beyond my wildest dreams.

A tad more composure at the start and finish, which should come with time - another preseason together and a stable lineup - and we should be the goods.

Well done Mr Roos and all the team.

Based on these statistics, and holding consistently over the remaining season, I would strongly consider placing a substantial bet ($10,000) on us making the finals in 2015. (I have never made a financial bet before)

You could argue that it was our best performance of the season. We would have beaten at least 8 other sides today and in many ways we've already caught up to the middle tier sides. It's no disgrace to lose like that to a top 4 side ... we've come a long way and the future looks exceedingly bright. It was a gutsy performance and we almost got the chocolates.

We just lack a bit of polish and we badly missed Dawes. If he'd have played, we may have won. It's quite remarkable that we nearly won the game against a top side whilst having Gawn and Frawley as our key forwards ... and, we've still got Hogan* and Trengove to add to our forward line next year (we may also draft or trade in another KPF for depth) Watts becomes a far more dangerous high half forward in that scenario.

We got a taste of things to come with that Toumpas/Salem combo in the last quarter - so composed and I especially liked the way Salem took out one of their players before running on to take the mark - heady stuff. All our young players are showing us something.

Bring on the Pies!

*Hopefully Hogan can get on the park at some stage this season.

One of SEN or 774 gave Kane Cornes 3 votes for his job keeping Nathan Jones to 30 touches.

true but there needs to be some honest reflection on how far we've come and the valid reasons for not quite getting over the line. its not realistic to expect the side to be playing 4 solid qtrs against the no1 side at this stage. had they not put in effort then yes we should be gutted but for rd 10, a 3 1/2 qtr effort over the top side is very good . we shall demand more but lets not ignore the realities of the teams potential at this stage

Yep, particularly to give up the first 4 goals and come back to head the team that was a game clear top of the ladder, and on the road. Have witnessed many years of that ending up with a 40+ point deficit at quarter time, with the prospect of scoring a ton by the final siren. That's a major, major improvement on the recent past.

I love our team.

JUST BRING ON THE PIES.

Beat me to it.

Disappointed with the loss but haven't been more excited about a game in a long time. No public holiday here next Monday but I think I feel a bout of man flew coming on...

I wasn't able to follow the game at all day, which in the past few years would hardly have bothered me, but these days is very frustrating.

Interesting to read on here that Grimes had a shocker - I read the AFL.com report (not that that's the bible of football mind you) and they said that Grimes was keeping Wingard quiet - not true?

Without having watched how it went down, it strikes me as rather indicative of our season - for large parts of the game we are not just competitive, but better, even dominant at times, but we lack polish and class, we make mistakes and we have lapses. Hence, we get outscored 51-0 in 30 minutes of game play and come out on top in the remainder of the game. We lost the Dogs game the exact same way.

How many games have we had the lead in the fourth quarter at some point in? Obviously the three wins, plus today, the Dogs game and the GWS game too. That's an enormous indicator of how far we've come and how much better we are this year.

Christian Salem has an elite footy brain and the skills to match

What a gem

Didnt see any of it or get to hear any. Working on site. Checked scores occasionally.

I take note a few players had less than glowing day and yet if you take away the first half of first quarter where we we a) asleep b) bamboozled or C) hadn't arrived yet we actually went toe to toe with the ladder leaders....umm no..just edged them.

What an amazing result. We still have more than half a dozen spuds...I mean eos write offs but all in all not too shabby a day. Would have loved an upset...came close.

We're getting there at long last

I'm just stoked that we are now competitive against just about every team.

It's only a matter of time until they knock off a top eight side.

Bring on the pies.

Just watched the highlights on the AFL site.

Tyson's goal in the third quarter was outstanding.

I really can't understand the negativity. We matched it with, and for long periods were better than, the best side in the competition. And don't tell me they're 'pretenders' - they've convincingly beaten Hawthorn, Fremantle and Geelong and they continually play fast, skilful, strong football. They're the real deal. Meanwhile we have spent the most part of the last 7 years in the bottom four (didn't we read that the win against Richmond took us out of the bottom four for only the second time in 2.5 years?).

We're still going to have poor games, but we look more and more likely to win a game or two you never would have thought we'd be winning this year.

titan - Jetta had the job on Wjngard, and won the battle convincingly.