The caretaker coach handed out just “two maybe three” pass marks to his players on a day when they were out-classed in every facet of the game on their way to a 94-point hiding.
“It was a lesson in how you have to consistently come up every week and play a certain style no matter if you’re at home or away or whether you’re playing against a top-four team or a bottom-four team,” Primus said.
“In the first five or 10 minutes we had a couple of easy shots on goal and missed then after that we just fell away in all the areas that we’ve been really good at.
“It’s not indicative of our playing group, but it’s certainly a lesson in how you have to be perceived and in what you want to try and stand for.
“They gave us a really good lesson in where we’re at.”
The accountability and intensity Port has shown since Primus took over from Mark Williams was sadly lacking on the day.
So much so that Primus felt compelled to hold an impromptu class of his own in the Etihad Stadium change rooms in the immediate aftermath.
“We went through exactly the process of how we wanted to play against St Kilda,” he said.
“They wrote that down on the board and then ticked or crossed whether they did that or didn’t. As you could imagine there were a lot of crosses up there.”
It was the sort of performance that doesn’t look good on a resume and while Primus admitted it didn’t do his chances any good, he maintained the future of the playing group - not his - was the primary concern.
“Wins are good, losses are bad, but we’re not really focussed on that,” he said.
“I’m really focussed on what we’re going to get out of this seven weeks.
“At the moment we’re two and two and we’ll see which players want to come along for the ride and which ones want to bounce back and get something out of the next three games.
“We’ve been heading in the right direction but this is a real setback. We’ve got to find out if we want to bounce back.”
