THIS September, our coaching staff has had more sleepless nights than usual. It wasn't finals excitement, but coaching against Geelong and Port Adelaide that added to our insomnia.

What did we learn from each occasion, from each loss?

This season, we have been able to beat some of the top teams, however, we need to do this more consistently and those finals losses taught my boys the extra development required to take them to the next level.

On Saturday, the Power needs to make the Geelong defenders play as defenders. In our qualifying final, they were able to play very attacking football.

The Cats' defenders — Tom Harley, Matthew Scarlett, Darren Milburn, Andrew Mackie, Max Rooke — all have the confidence to go for their marks while most other defenders in the AFL will attempt to spoil solidly first. This is the strength of their game, but one Port Adelaide can attack. The Power forward line needs to use its talent and skill to make the Cats defenders think twice before trying to mark by moving and isolating the defence.

The Power needs to keep the scoreboard ticking over through continuous forward entries. Last week, Collingwood entered the forward 50 around 40 times and almost kicked a winning score. Early in our final we did not take our opportunities to do that. Port needs to make sure it is able to get the ball inside 50 around 50 times for the game and it will be able to kick a winning score.

The Cats are also very corridor-oriented. Each time they gathered possession in the back half against us, they moved the ball inside and used their runners to set up their play. They then used either Cameron Mooney or Gary Ablett as the hit-up player, who in turn, feeds a handball to a runner, who can spot up a forward inside 50 or penetrate deep to the goalmouth.

Port needs to cut this corridor space by putting numbers in that area to cause a turnover. Given the Cats play on almost kamikaze-like, if you can hold them up, it will force them to kick to a contest or over-use the handball.

The ruck battle is vital when you play both these teams. Brad Ottens is in red-hot form, while Brendon Lade and Dean Brogan are probably the best one-two combination in the competition.

This makes Geelong's back-up ruckman, Steven King, very important. Port needs to be able to go with Ottens, but if the Cats' second ruckman is being beaten, Ottens will be forced to spend more time in the ruck and less time resting forward where he kicks goals.

The Power's greatest strength is speed around the ball. On the weekend, Port was able to clear the stoppages too easily and that led to our overall downfall. Therefore, if the Cats do not win the stoppages, their pressure needs to be immense to curb Port's speed on the outside.

The highly decorated Cats' midfield poses a query. Who do you tag — Ablett, Jimmy Bartel, Joel Corey? You can't go with them all, but if you let them run their own race they can accumulate more than 100 possessions very quickly.

In our final, the Cats had 130 touches more than us, set up from their engine room.

You need to have a plan for each of them, but the key factor is to win the football and curb their effectiveness because they will still win the ball.

With Darryl Wakelin, Troy Chaplin and Michael Pettigrew the Power defence can size and shape up with anyone, but their run is the most important aspect in this area of the ground.

Port plays its best football when the defence runs and links up through the middle of the ground. This drive forces the opposition forwards to worry about them, however, cut their run and the initiative is back with the forwards.

To help generate this run Port Adelaide has played a loose man at stages against Geelong, West Coast and us over the past month. If Port chooses to do this you have to ensure that your loose man has an impact on the game.

It will be a high-pressured game so both teams need to take their chances early. Against the Cats we were still in the game at quarter-time because we had kicked three straight, while last Saturday we essentially shot ourselves in the foot with five straight behinds early in the second quarter.

In a grand final this is possibly the most critical aspect of the game — taking your chances. Both teams have the class and speed to make you pay, as we found out.