Power coach Mark Williams said he was pleased with the way his team gusted out a win, despite them clearly not being at the top of the game. In his post-game media conference he was asked a variety of questions including specific question on the form of Daniel Motlop, Nathan Krakouer and captain Warren Tredrea. Here’s what he had to say.

Firstly, I’ve spoken to Kane, and he seems to be okay, so that’s great news. It’s concussion and he’s been cleared of any other serious injury, which is great.

Who would know exactly what turns a team on and what doesn’t. The idea of trying to beat a team that we’ve never beaten before at the MCG is something that we tried to dangle in front of the players. The last couple of weeks we played in the pouring rain. Maybe that had something to do with our zip, but I didn’t see it today. But given all of that, we still struggled and struggled and persisted and persisted and got over the line. In the end I know Neil will be disappointed with his result. He’s a wonderful coach, he’s a wonderful bloke and to be able to get his team up and firing having had a five-zip start to play a team that’s up and going – and we’ve certainly been up and going for a fair time now – he got a great return from his players. I know they’ll (Melbourne) be disappointed but I’m sure they’ve got a win around the corner and I certainly wish them the best.

What did you make of Byron Pickett’s tackle?

It was so far away and I was really concerned about winning the game. Someone said that Kane had hurt his shoulder at that stage, so that’s why we got the stretcher out there to stop the game, so at least we had even numbers on the ground.

All I know about Byron is that he attacks the ball very hard, he’s a great teammate of all our players, he’s a premiership player of ours, and in no way would Byron ever try and hurt our players. I wish him all the success.

You must have been delighted with Motlop after Tasmania when he missed the goal after the siren, to kick the winning goal today?

The wheel turns, doesn’t it. It was fantastic for him. He’d been out a fair time, and there was a lot of discussion about whether or not we play him this week, straight from four or five weeks off. He only played one quarter (in the round-one win over Fremantle), but he probably won us the game against Fremantle in the one quarter, he kept us in the game, and kicked three straight. We were wanting to reward his effort, he’s worked tirelessly in the gym in his time off, so that’s just reward for him.

We had Pearce coming back from a hammy (hamstring injury) and Thomas hadn’t played for a while. It was important to get some new numbers and new people back into the team. Some had been tired from playing in the rain, some had not been playing, so add that altogether and it looked a very tired group in the end and I thought Melbourne looked really tired too. As I said, I was rapt with the persistence of it. But in the end you could toss a coin and we could be sitting here talking about a close loss, but that’s how it goes.

Was your heart in your mouth when Motlop played on?

Daniel played on a couple of times prior to that and it didn’t work out, but I’m always thrilled with our players taking the game on, rather than playing boring footy. Significant for us, I think we had five Aboriginals and a Fijian playing today, and that says something about the AFL and the opportunity it gives to groups of young indigenous men, because I don’t think there’s any occupation outside of sport that provides that sort of opportunity. It was brilliant and we’re thrilled with it.

How did you assess it overall? Did you feel like you got out of jail?

Well, you can’t get out of jail if you were in front most of the day, but in the end they had shots on goals and they could have won it. I thought probably before half-time we should have been five goals up and we kept missing goals. And they kept going at it, and their belief in the fact that they’d beaten us so many times at home gave them something.

What does it say about your side and its development that you didn’t play as well as you could but still won?

Without doubt at the end of the year all you do is add up the wins, and you won’t even remember this in three or four weeks’ time. It says something about where they (the players) want to get to, and their will to win and all credit to the players.

How much does it mean to you to beat Melbourne at the MCG for the first time?

Well it’s something probably that the press write up more than us. I remember, and some of you guys were probably discussing it, when it was being said, ‘Port can’t win at the MCG’. I think we’ve probably evened that out now. We’ve won a lot of games at the MCG and we look forward to coming here. Building on this one, we’ll look forward to trying to beat Melbourne the next time we come here as well. They are one of the one or two clubs that have a positive record against us, so we’ll keep trying to work on that. (Note: after today’s victory the ledger is now 8-8)

How difficult is it with Shaun sat on and Chad moving around, to know what to do with them?

They were trying to stop some of ours and we were trying to stop some of theirs. It made for an interesting tactical battle but in the end I think it was a nil all draw. I don’t see that we had any real advantage. I thought we dropped some balls inside-50 that we should have caught and missed a lot of set shots. We were high-70s (percent) with set shots this season, so that will be tumbling down. We’ll be back practicing again as early as tomorrow.

Is there anything you can put it down to, not getting that run you were wanting to create?

No. We’ll freshen our players up a bit this week I would think.

How do you think Warren Tredrea’s coming along?

He had five set shots on goals. We’d be happy with that. I think he should have kicked four of those. They weren’t hard shots. So, if he’s four goals every week for 22 weeks, that gets you nearly a 100 goals, and you’d be happy with that, but he didn’t kick straight.

What about his mobility?

It’s coming back – it was always talked about that after the mid-season break will be a good indication of where he’s going, so we’re just taking it slowly.

Was there any comment from the players about the surface? It looked like it was shifting?

No. The players just love coming here to the MCG. We have great memories here. It’s a winter sport, for those of us that are old enough to remember the MCG with the mud wicket in the middle, it was shocking. They’ve done a wonderful job, Stephen Gough and his group, have done a great job.

The expectation of a first year player is that they’ll hit a wall. Is there a reason why Krakouer doesn’t seem to have come near it yet?

Gee, he did some good things again today. He loves the brotherhood that we have at the club. He loves being part of the group of players. They love him being there. They enjoy his company, his humour. Shaun Burgoyne is very much one of the great Aboriginal players and he’s certainly one of our great leaders, and his care for the welfare of young players, and especially indigenous players that come into our group is outstanding. And Danyle Pearce who has just come into our group, he can recognise and relate easily to Nathan, and Peter and Daniel (Motlop) are just great knock-around blokes, so it’s a great mix for him.

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  Injury update: Kane Cornes – concussion (cleared of any further serious injury); Troy Chaplin – foot (to be assessed)