PORT Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley says young star Jason Horne-Francis has "still got a lot to learn" after a poor performance in Sunday's loss to Gold Coast.

Horne-Francis had just nine disposals in the 14-point defeat, and despite looking dangerous on occasions with two goals, let himself down by conceding four free kicks.

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The former No.1 draft pick got drawn into some physical altercations, notably with Nick Holman, and gave away a 50m penalty to Sam Flanders in the second quarter that led to a goal.

Horne-Francis shoved Flanders to the turf after originally infringing with a high tackle.

Hinkley said although he was a young player, it was no excuse for the South Australian.

"He's got to be better than he was today in some moments ... and we won't accept that that's okay," Hinkley said.

The first pick in the 2021 AFL Draft did not touch the football in the first quarter and had just two disposals at half-time.

Hinkley pushed him forward for long stretches, but Horne-Francis attended 10 centres bounces and was a big part of the midfield brigade that was beaten by the Suns.

"He's learned a lot, but he's still got a lot more to learn and I think that's clear when you have a young player developing," Hinkley said.

"He's an aggressive player who seeks out body contact sometimes and once you let the oppo get a look at it, they tend to come after you a little bit more

"Jason's learning to deal with that and he has to get better."

Port played without Lachie Jones (concussion) for three quarters and Todd Marshall (hip) for the second half, with the latter on the wrong end of some friendly fire from Charlie Dixon.

Hinkley said it was Gold Coast's ability to execute in big moments that separated the teams.

"We were a little bit off what we've been, but that's more to do with the Suns than us," he said.

A week after saying his team needed to grow up, Damien Hardwick was pleased with his side's response, but said there were still plenty of areas to improve on.

Led by Noah Anderson and Sam Collins – joint captains in the absence of injured Jarrod Witts and Touk Miller – the Suns had 10 goalkickers and held off any surge Port threw at them.

Hardwick said they were capable of "great things" and he needed to drive them accordingly.

"We'll get a fair bit out of that last five or six minutes, when we probably went forward when we didn't have to," Hardwick said.

"We always had a spare, so let's just use the spare.

"Trying to get that message across and that understanding is something I'm still working on with the playing group, so we'll get better with that.

"You look at our KPIs … we are very very strong.

"Again, coulda, shoulda, woulda, but if we had have won those two games against St Kilda and North Melbourne that we lost by a kick, all of a sudden the picture looks very different.

"The fact is, we are where are.

"Do I think we're capable of high and strong things? Absolutely. And I want our playing group to believe that too. We'll keep driving them as hard as we can."