PORT Adelaide must stay in the "now" if it hopes to dig out of a 0-3 hole and push towards finals, coach Ken Hinkley says.

The Power continued their winless start to the season on Friday night when losing an epic Showdown encounter to Adelaide following a Jordan Dawson goal after the siren.

While Hinkley was disappointed to lose, he said he still believed his team could make noise this season.

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"Absolutely you believe in that, but we understand it gets challenging," he said.

"We just don't look too far. That's a long way to look isn't it? 

"We've just got to stay here and look right now how we get to win number one, don't worry about win number two, three or four or however many it might take, let's get to win number one as quick as we possibly can."

It gets no easier next week, with Port hosting premier Melbourne at Adelaide Oval on Thursday night.

Hinkley said the loss to Adelaide was an improved performance on the 64-point shellacking six days earlier from Hawthorn, but was still well below what he expected.

Goalkicking and defence were again problem areas, with the Crows kicking the final four goals of the game to overturn a 19-point final quarter deficit.

"It's too early for the players not to believe and it's too early for them to not own their position," Hinkley said.

"Their position is to turn up and work really hard. 

"They know how good they can be together when they're playing well, but they're not playing well.

"Some stuff tonight was better, still not super, but it was better.

"We're a better team than that and we expect to be a better team than that.

"You just keep working and that's all you can do, you stay in the now, you don't get too distracted, you work really hard."

Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks said it was that hard work that gave his chance to pull out the great escape.  

"We really enjoyed this win. This was a good night for our footy club," Nicks said.

"It wasn't the prettiest last quarter for us. 

"It didn't need to be pretty, it didn't need to be special. Even Daws' kick for goal wasn't that pretty off the boot. I think we were all packing our computers up and walking away thinking it was going out.

"You do the work, you get what you deserve and our guys deserve it tonight."

Nicks praised half-forward Lachlan Murphy who earned the free kick that led to Dawson's goal.

It was Murphy's first game back and he was assisted from the field holding his neck after a challenge from Sam Mayes.

"Murph knows I'd be lying if I sat here and said I'd rather have Murph kick that set shot than Daws," Nicks laughed.

"He may have come up to me afterwards and said 'I'm glad that one stung me because I'm not sure I kick that one'.

"He puts his head over the ball, this kid has come off an operation on his spine, and he shows his younger teammates how it's done. I couldn't be more pleased for him."