Port Adelaide great Kane Cornes has highlighted what he believes is the biggest issue holding the Power back in big games.
Ken Hinkley’s Power went down 123-81 against Collingwood at the MCG on Saturday, and that was after leading by as much as 31 in the first term.
The loss continues a trend of falling short in massive matches after losing to Melbourne at home in Round 3, while they also were dumped out of finals in straight sets last September.
Cornes thinks that the key issue is an inability to trust at least a handful of players on a week-to-week basis.
While the players that he named no doubt have high ceilings and can perform brilliantly, Cornes doesn’t feel they’re bankable products as the difference between their best and worst is obvious to see and occurs too often.
“When I look at Port, there’s a handful of players that I can’t trust week to week,” Cornes said on SEN’s Sportsday.
“When it’s going their way and things are nice and the ball is flowing, they look a million dollars.
“Let me name some. Can you trust Ryan Burton? I do not know what I’m going to get from Ryan Burton from week to week. He can look like a top 15 half-back in the game when he’s flying, and things are going well. But when he has to defend like you did on the weekend, he makes some awful errors.
“Willie Rioli. Can you really trust Willie to stand up in a big game?
“Can you trust Miles Bergman to stand up for you?
“Can you trust Ollie Wines, a Brownlow Medallist, not to make silly errors and turn the football over?
“Can you trust Esava Ratugolea yet? There’s a few too many of those flaky types.”
Cornes thinks that lack of reliability hurts the team as they can’t trust what they’re going to get from each other on-field.
He felt that hurt them considerably against Collingwood as the Magpies looked connected with a whole side of contributors.
“The best feeling you can have, and ‘Hodgey’ (Luke Hodge) would have had this for the majority of his career,” Cornes said.
“You walk down the tunnel, you look left, you see a teammate and think, ‘Yep, I know what I’m going to get from him’. You look right and go, ‘I know what I'm going to get from you today’.
“There’s a handful of players and I’ve got no idea what I’m going to get.
“It could be great - it could be cherry ripe. But it could be pretty awful, and we saw some pretty awful on the weekend.”
Port Adelaide will hope to bounce back when they host St Kilda at the Adelaide Oval on Friday night.
The Power sit fifth on the ladder with a 4-2 record.
