PORT Adelaide coach Matthew Primus says he is not too concerned by his club's winless start to the pre-season competition, despite his team's Jekyll and Hyde impersonation. 

The Power led by four points at half time of their first NAB Cup clash against Melbourne at AAMI Stadium on Friday night, but wasted opportunities in front of goal in the second half and eventually went down by nine points.

The club's second game of the night against Adelaide was in complete contrast to the first, with the players lacking intensity and registering only one goal in the 40-minute hit-out.

Port Adelaide blooded five debutants, John Butcher, Callum Hay, Jarrad Irons, Jarrad Redden and Cam O'Shea across the two games and Primus said he'd taken heart in their performances.

"We would've liked to have hit the scoreboard a bit more and stopped some of the easy goals we conceded…but we were pleased with a couple of the young guys we saw," Primus said after the game.

"We got to see quite a few players on our list that we probably normally won't get to see. I thought Irons, O'Shea and Redden all showed a little bit for us.

"We've got a couple of guys, who will be on the long-term injury list for us, so we wanted to have a look at a couple of our rookies and first-year players knowing that next week we've probably got five players coming back, and the week after that another five.

"The great thing now is that we've got a month to really hone in on our best side and our best set up and really prepare ourselves for round one and the coming season."

The Power will have next weekend off before hitting the NAB Challenge circuit the following week.

One upside for teams relegated to the NAB Challenge is they're able to play with the rules that will be used in the season proper, rather than the experimental rules used in the NAB Cup.

Primus was reluctant to be drawn into debate over the contentious 'last touch' out-of-bounds rule on trial on Friday night, but said his side would now have an opportunity to prepare for the changes to the interchange rules this season.

"We knew they were the rules coming in. I think the umpires found it difficult to know what to do with [the last-touch rule] too," he said.

"For your first NAB Cup game [the rules] can be [experimented with] but the closer you get to round one you'd like to start focusing on the real rules.

"Being out of the competition now we can focus a lot more [on the new substitute rule and season-proper rules] than the NAB Cup rules."

Another positive for Port Adelaide out of Friday night's triple-header was the performance of wayward forward Daniel Motlop.

Motlop had a nightmare season on and off the field in 2010, but kicked the Power's only goal in their match against the Crows and Primus said he'd been happy with the 28-year-old's effort.

"Daniel has been up and going in our pre-season and has acquitted himself pretty well, but there's still a long way to go," Primus said.

"He would've been happy to get a fair bit of the ball and it looked like he moved pretty well out there, which is the most pleasing thing. We'll manage him along with a few other players as we get to round one, but it was a good start for him."