St Kilda champion Nick Dal Santo has urged Port Adelaide to use the pre-season as an opportunity to forge an identity for the way they want to play in 2019 and beyond.
Ken Hinkley’s side faded badly towards the end of the 2018 season after being well placed heading into the final two months – losing seven out of their last eight games to miss the finals, eventually finishing 12th on the ladder.
Dal Santo believes the contested ball area should be a strength for the Power, considering the amount of strong bodied midfielders they have at their disposal, but has identified it is a problem area which must be solved this pre-season.
“They’ve got time this pre-season to find who they are,” Dal Santo told SEN Afternoons.
“What is their identity and how do they play football? Are they this hard, inside team which they’ve recruited for and we thought that they had?
“That last eight weeks off the top of my head, their contested possessions, if it wasn’t last it was in the bottom three of the competition – and that’s unacceptable for a team that has that many inside midfielders.
“Ollie Wines, Brad Ebert, Tom Rockliff, Sam Powell-Pepper, you’ve got Robbie Gray who can go through there. They’ve got Paddy Ryder, who was in and out last year a little bit through injury, but they’ve got enough dominance and inside players to not be that poor in that particular area.
“They need to get that right. Who are they and how do they want to play football?”
The Power lost Chad Wingard, Jared Polec and Jasper Pittard during the trade period but added young Hawthorn defender Ryan Burton.
Listen to Nick Dal Santo’s chat on SEN Afternoons with Andy Maher in the player below