PORT Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley is adamant that his team has the talent and work ethic to improve on its stunning 2013 effort, in which it made the second week of the finals.
But the second-year coach certainly won't deem this season a failure if his young team is unable to match those highs.
"Footy's a funny game," Hinkley told AFL.com.au. "The bounce of the ball might not go our way this year. It might go the other way, and things like that happen.
"You don't know what injuries are going to do. Form can be a bit of fluctuating thing. If you lose it, you can stay out of form for a bit.
"All I can control is how hard we work. Our season will be marked on our evenness across the whole year and how hard we work."
Port's fitness boss Darren Burgess put the players through some tortuous training in the lead-up to last season.
It's been more of the same this summer.
"We’re just working really hard," Hinkley said.
"We're working on the basis that if we turn up and train hard, and we prepare ourselves as best as we possibly can and then demand certain things from each other, that will give us a chance.
"It doesn't give us any guarantees, but it gives us a chance to perform well again."
Hinkley believes it was "incredibly valuable" for his men to have played in two finals last season.
The fact they produced a famous victory over Collingwood at the MCG in the first of those finals, then led Geelong by four goals at half-time in the second, made the experience even better.
"They're the opportunities you need to progress as a football club," Hinkley said. "We're not foolish enough to say we were expecting that to be our opportunity last year.
"But we're grateful we got that opportunity and hopefully now we can improve from there."
Hinkley has worked hard to turn Port Adelaide into a family club, with development coaches instructed to make sure they keep the players' parents well informed about the progress of their sons.
Many people at Alberton Oval consider this an underrated factor in the club's improvement on and off the field.
"We've just had our parents’ weekend in Adelaide, where we get the whole of our playing group's parents across for a weekend and look after them," Hinkley explained.
"You build those relationships and it makes (a positive club culture) foster.
"We are very much based around the community and family at Port Adelaide, and we have to make sure we harvest that and make sure everyone feels really welcome."
