PORT ADELAIDE players who get tagged on Sunday will get no sympathy from senior coach Mark Williams.
All the talk this week has centred on the need for the Power players to help their teammates get free of the Swans’ heavy taggers, but Williams says his team just needs to “get on with it.”
The match-up most detrimental to Port Adelaide against the Swans in round eight last season was Brownlow Medallist Adam Goodes on All-Australian Chad Cornes.
Cornes was limited to just 15 touches and Williams was expecting the same battle to take place at the SCG on Sunday.
“It’s just a battle and Chad’s got to bloody work at it. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy - Goodes is a good player, but bad luck. Just play on him and beat him,” Williams said on Friday.
“Luckily Chad can play in three areas of the ground, so he might play at centre-half back.
“We would think that Brett Kirk would play on Shaun Burgoyne, Jarrad McVeigh would play on Danyle Pearce and that Ben Mathews will come in and play on Kane Cornes.
“The fact is Sydney is going to pick 18 players on the field who are going to play on our players - that’s how they play, so bad luck - just get on with it.”
Defender Troy Chaplin will return for the clash with the Swans at the expense of rugged onballer Tom Logan. Damon White will also travel with the team as an emergency.
“Chaplin is one of the more experienced players in defence,” Williams said.
“He’s been back there a while and he’s come through the system to play a few games alongside Darryl Wakelin, Bish [Matthew Bishop] and Monty [Brett Montgomery], so that’s been good for him and now he can help develop the others around him.”
Williams was also resigned to the fact that Sunday’s game was likely to be a dour, low scoring affair.
“I think persistence [is the key] more than anything. You can talk about run, open play and all that stuff, but I doubt it will happen,” he said.
“We’re certainly not anticipating that. We think it will be a tight, hard-fought battle and that’s what we’re preparing for.
“We’ve watched enough tape and all our coaches went and watched Sydney play against St Kilda last week. If it’s a six-versus-six goal result, as long as we get the result St Kilda did, we’ll be happy.”
