Hille hurt
Essendon suffered a blow early when ruckman David Hille was subbed out of the game. The 30-year-old suffered a calf injury and was replaced by Sam Lonergan at the 21-minute mark of the first quarter. James Hird said that Hille didn't nurse the injury into the game, but the coach expects to be without the ruckman for two to three weeks.

Myers and Lovett-Murray too
Nathan Lovett-Murray spent large portions of the second half on the sideline getting his left hamstring worked on and the Bombers missed his influence in the third quarter. Lovett-Murray was important in the first half, with 14 possessions, but had just three touches after half-time.

"It was a very courageous effort by Nathan," Hird said. "He played about 45-50 minutes with a hamstring [injury] and couldn't run more than 70 per cent, but … him staying out there was a big part of us winning the game."

David Myers limped off in the final term and went straight down the race for treatment on a hamstring injury. Both are expected to miss two to three weeks.

Ryder rides again
Paddy Ryder needed to step up in Hille's absence and he did just that. Working against Jarrad Redden and Daniel Stewart, Ryder finished the game with 46 hit-outs, which easily eclipsed Port Adelaide's combined total of 25 for the match. It was shades of Anzac Day, 2009, when Ryder won the Anzac Medal after Hille was forced out with a knee injury.

Paid up member of the defenders' union
Jackson Trengove played a lot of junior footy up forward, but he's been recast as a backman and he's clearly thinking like a defender these days. After catching Ryder holding the ball in the third quarter Jobe Watson failed to give him the ball back correctly. The resultant 50m penalty would have seen Trengove lining up in the goal square, but he hand balled over the top to a grateful Justin Westhoff instead.

Sharpshooter Schulz
Jay Schulz was Port Adelaide's most dangerous forward with four goals on the day. The former Tiger has taken his game to a new level since moving from Punt Road, but Matthew Primus would dearly have loved to give him a bit more help inside forward 50. "I thought Jay competed well, but we probably weren't able to get Dustin [Fletcher] out of the way enough," Primus said.

"Jay's been in good form and it would have been nice to have [John] Butcher out there too helping out."

The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL