PORT ADELAIDE coach Ken Hinkley has a message for those falling for a new-age dawn of freewheeling AFL footy.

Don't.

Defence is coming. Hinkley reckons the round-one bent towards high scores is temporary.

"If the game evolves a little and it becomes a little more high scoring, I think most people outside the fence would be pretty happy with that," Hinkley told reporters on Friday.

"Even (Crows coach) Don (Pyke) and myself would be pretty happy with that - if we were watching that game, not involved in it.

"I don't think it's a bad thing for the game of football.

"You watch though, teams will figure it out. Teams will get their defence right. And it won't be as free-flowing as it was last week."

Pyke, sitting next to Hinkley at a pre-Showdown media conference, said he was one of 18 coaches planning to stem the scoring.

"Whether it continues in the same way with the volume of scoring, I don't know," Pyke said.

"But clearly the first round suggested it was more open-ended, more inside 50s, more scores ... but from a team defence viewpoint, we want to stop the team scoring."