A DEFIANT Travis Boak says Port Adelaide won't be throwing in the towel and will use the bye to rediscover the hunger that was so sadly missing in the loss to Fremantle on Saturday.
Last weekend's 17-point loss to the lowly Dockers in Perth has left the Power's chances of playing finals football hanging by a thread.
The Power are two games and percentage behind cross-town rivals Adelaide in eighth spot. They also have a horror draw to finish the season, with five of their remaining nine games against top eight opponents.
They host Hawthorn, Greater Western Sydney and Adelaide coupled with away games against North Melbourne and Sydney.
"I'd prefer us to be playing a lot better footy, but I embrace that challenge," Boak said on Monday.
"There's no way we will back down from that challenge.
"We will face it head on and I'll continue to face it head on.
"In a way, I'm excited for the challenge and to get out of it and to bring this team, and this club, back to the performances we expect."
Boak admitted that as a whole, the club's senior players had been below their best this season.
"As a leadership group, we haven't been as good as we've needed to be this year and we'll continue to work through that," Boak said.
"I've got no doubt the leadership group and the senior players are high quality people and players and they'll continue to work hard and get this group back to playing some good footy."
Power coach Ken Hinkley was damming in his appraisal of his players following the loss to the Dockers.
Boak shared those sentiments, saying the most disappointing aspect of the defeat was the lack of effort across the board.
"When you get a performance like that, it really does shatter you," Boak said.
"It hurts. There's no doubt he was hurting, the playing group was hurting, and we need to make sure that hurt drives us further now because we can't have performances like that.
"A bye coming off a loss is not great, you want to change it, but you get a chance to reflect and see what things need to change.
"As a club and a playing group you look at yourselves in the mirror and ask what do we expect of each other.
"They're the hard questions we need to ask and demand from each other.
"We cannot have performances like we had on the weekend where we question our effort."
In positive news for the Power, forward Jay Schulz and defender Jack Hombsch are both expected to be available for Friday week's match against Richmond at the Adelaide Oval in round 15.
However, young tall Dougal Howard is likely to be sidelined with a serious knee injury.
