PORT ADELAIDE coach Mark Williams says the club will look to recently retired champion Michael Wilson for inspiration ahead of Friday night’s clash with Collingwood at AAMI Stadium.

Williams conceded the Power’s 66-point loss to Carlton last week was partly due to a lack of motivation and said his team would need to do better against the seemingly finals-bound Pies.

“You can’t manufacture anything more than that [the desire to play finals]. That’s one of the biggest carrots in front of anyone,” Williams said on Monday.

“Obviously Collingwood has got it this week and, for our guys, it’s going to be motivationally very, very difficult.

“We’ve trained really hard already this morning. We did a lot of running and the players are fully aware that what we dished up on Saturday was unacceptable and that we’re not going to dish that up again.

“The big highlight for us is that it will be Michael Wilson’s tribute game and everyone needs to come with the right mindset."

Williams questioned the attitude of his players in the loss to the Blues, after they were recorded just seven scoring shots to Carlton's 24 in the first half.

"Without any doubt, the mindset last week wasn’t right. I’m not sure whether they stayed up too late and watched the Olympic opening or something, but our start was completely pathetic," he said.

“This week, we’re playing Collingwood and we’ve had a great rivalry against them in the past. We can remember (president) Eddie (McGuire) running in and signing songs with the cheer squad and last year people said they were only one kick away from winning a grand final.

“We only played them once last year and I’m sure there will be 10 or 15,000 Collingwood supporters coming over here to see if they can win again, but we’re real keen to knock their chances of making the top four.”

Williams denied he’d deprived his team of the all-important finals motivator by taking the top eight off the agenda after round 13.

He also said the club’s current position was no different to late in 2006 when the Power also promoted youth and the result the following year was a grand final berth.

“We did the right thing [by taking the finals off the agenda] and the best thing for our club moving forward," Williams said.

"As bad as it might seem, the number-one thing we have to consider is the continuity of the club. You make decisions for the long-term not the short-term.

“You live the hurt right now, but you get over it and move on. If you reflect on 2006 to now, there’s not that much difference for me. In 2006, it was fairly similar and people could see what occurred.

“We made similar decisions in getting people off to have surgery and we also put a lot of young players in, gave them opportunities and experience. It held us in good stead for the next year and that’s exactly what we’re doing now.

“A lot of people won’t like it, but these are the tough decisions that we at the leadership end of the club have to make for the good of the club."

Williams again declared his allegiance to Port Adelaide and highlighted impressive Alipate Carlile as one of the success stories of 2008.

“I’m really focused on what we’re doing at Port Adelaide and what’s happening here. It’s a huge challenge at the moment,” he said.

“There are lots of opportunities for lots of players and we’re really busy looking at those.

"Last week, again, Mitch Farmer did some good stuff. There were probably five or six really nice things in the game that you like to highlight and bring out and we look forward to that continuing.

“I’m not sure if anyone was at the game, but the amount of times the ball went to Brendan Fevola versus Alipate Carlile and the amount of times Alipate won those contests (was satisfying).

"This is basically a first-year player playing against a gun forward that represented Victoria and is right at the top of his game. I thought Alipate was outstanding. We look forward to those sort of developments in our side.”