IT'S THE end of the financial year, but on Thursday Port Adelaide will crunch some different numbers in a bid to determine just where it's gone wrong in the opening 14 rounds.
Power onballer Dom Cassisi said the club's leadership group would meet with coach Mark Williams and his assistants to analyse the data and set some targets for the last eight games.
"Tomorrow when we look at the stats, I’m sure some areas will stand out to all of us and we’ll have a combined discussion about what we’re going to do to improve," Cassisi said."I can remember this time last year, when I think we’d lost three or four games in a row, we came back with a few focus areas for the second half of the year and they worked, so we’re pretty positive about what we’re going to come up with.
"Come Monday, we (the leadership group) will go to the playing group with some things that we want to focus on for the rest of the year.
"We are all really looking forward to the next eight weeks and we’ve got something to prove. We’ve thought about it (this season) being pretty similar to 2006 when, in the second half of the year, we won the showdown [against Adelaide] and got close in some big games, so we’re looking forward to getting a result in the next eight weeks."
The most staggering number for Port Adelaide fans is 'four' under wins – the club’s worst start to a season since 2000.
Cassisi said the Power veterans had a significant role to play in terms of boosting player morale in the difficult period.
"We [the leaders] have a fair bit of a responsibility to make the place a good environment to be in for the rest of the guys because it is a bit of a tough time," he said.
"I can assure the supporters that we’re working very hard. As a leadership group, we’re trying to jell with the rest of the guys and come up with a few focus areas for the second half of the year.
"I don’t know if we’re going to take if from [the perspective that] we say we want to win five out of the next eight games or something similar.
"We’re going to take it week to week, but from a player's point of view, you still have to go out there to win every week, pull on the jumper and play with pride.
"I know, from speaking to the rest of the players, we’re going to try and win every week."