Port Adelaide midfielder Jarrad Schofield was left to lament his team’s lost opportunity against Collingwood at the MCG on Saturday.
On a brilliant sunny afternoon for football, the Power was eliminated from the finals contest in the second-last week of September for the second-straight season, losing by 44 points in the preliminary final.
For Schofield, who along with Che Cockatoo-Collins was a late inclusion for the injured Matthew Primus and Roger James, the loss was more disappointing than 2002’s prelim final defeat at the hands of Brisbane at the Gabba.
“It hurts when you lose finals and when you’re that close to playing in a grand final. When you know you had your chances and didn’t take them, it just eats away at you,” Schofield told reporters in the dressing rooms after the match.
He refused to be drawn on how costly the qualifying final loss to Sydney two weeks ago ultimately proved, preferring instead to focus on the team’s inability to take the chances presented to them against the Magpies.
After a Byron Pickett goal right on half-time reduced the margin to just 11 points at the long break, Port could only manage five behinds compared to Collingwood’s 4.1 in the third term, leaving the gap a pretty much unassailable 31 points at the last change.
“Coming over here, playing at the MCG is where you want to play. We were fully confident that we could, if we played our best footy, that we could beat anyone.”
“Even at half-time, 11 points down, the mood was good. We knew we were in with it, we just had to make the most of our opportunities.”
For Schofield, the competition for spots in the team was a motivating factor when he came onto the ground after starting the match on interchange, ending the day with 19 disposals and three marks.
He said the pain of losing came from the fact that the team didn’t play to its capabilities when it really mattered – at a preliminary final at the MCG.
“It hurts you so much because we know that once again when we play our best footy we can beat any side in the competition. We’ve proven that the last two years. We’ve just got to get that, just that extra hunger.”
“We were fully confident we could get there all the way this year. We’ve just got to start all over again now.”
Like his injured skipper Matthew Primus, the former Eagle is confident the club’s poor showing in its last two finals campaigns won’t deter the playing group from taking up the challenge to again contest for the ultimate prize in 2004.
“In the end, we’ve got the game plan, we’ve got the players, we’ve got the coaching staff to go all the way and we just got to make sure we focus once again on a good, hard pre-season and get back to it because we know we should be there.”
The 28-year old stressed that the team’s style of play wasn’t the issue at hand.
“Each week the game plan sort of alters just that fraction with who you’re playing. Collingwood are a very disciplined side and I think what you find is when you get to finals that teams are a lot more disciplined and stick to their game plan a lot longer and it’s harder to break sides open.”
“At the end of the day, we stuck to our game plan that we wanted to play and we fell short. It doesn’t matter whether it’s finals or the home and away. At the end of the day we didn’t make the most of our opportunities and we let ourselves down.”
