PORT Adelaide revels in history like a lotto winner in a spa of champagne and yet by half-time yesterday it was looking to run from it, trying to stave off the worst grand final loss of all time. It failed and the prickly proud outfit from Alberton learned that if you exist to win and not merely compete, there is no margin for error.
That it did not even compete will dog everyone involved for a long time. No side in grand final history has been humiliated as Port was yesterday and coach Mark Williams was embarrassed to the extent that he offered an apology — to the faithful, to football — for his team's limp performance.
These were the only concessions, though. Amid the grey suits and grim expressions worn like so many uniforms, it was clear that surrender for a day did not mean tomorrow. The famous Port sense of belief, the tradition which is a form of cultural nourishment for those touched by the club, still stood, even in the bodies of despairing footballers who could not.
"You can't be broken by it and we won't be," vowed Port chairman Greg Boulton.
"We're better than that, we're better than we were today. I think that we have to say we've had a great year and a really poor grand final day. They were outstanding and we weren't good enough but we'll look back and this experience won't be wasted. I can assure people of that.
"Our fans will be unhappy but they also know we don't accept defeat easily. I won't suggest we'll be back here next year. Footy is too tough for that. But we'll respond proudly to what took place today."
By a measure of wealth, Port is one of the competition's bottom feeders. As a dollars-and-cents operation, it is a marginal business, perhaps only pride above a request for AFL assistance. But, of course, Port isn't a brand but a football club, a distinction it takes seriously and preaches with an evangelistic zeal.
Geelong's record-breaking 119-point triumph will not change this. Port did a lot right to be back in a grand final with a remodelled team three years after winning the premiership in 2004. It did so because its football decisions are sound and it understands what success is made of. It recruits and prepares footballers as well, if not better, than any other in the competition. It has to.
When Williams prevailed in 2004, he had Troy Chaplin, Michael Pettigrew, Brett Ebert, Steven Salopek, Jacob Surjan and Brad Symes on the list, developing. They did not play then but all played yesterday. Twelve months after Byron Pickett won his Norm Smith Medal and Port ended the long reign of the Brisbane Lion Kings, Williams began pulling his winning combination apart.
We know this because Brett Montgomery walked out after being released and revealed that Williams had told him he could not be a part of the next side. A side that the coach was determined to build straight away. Proud Port certainly is, sentimental it is not.
This relentless planning and utter faith was not broken yesterday by the discovery that the Port Adelaide side of 2007 is good but not yet outstanding; superior to all but one.
"The plan starts now to play finals football next year. We'll get back on the horse," said captain Warren Tredrea.
"I've got a strong conviction that we've got a very special group of young guys and with our senior players we've got a good list. We'll update that and keep moving forward. We go on."
There was acknowledgement both for Geelong and for the abject failure of so much of the team's game in response.
"It will sting for a long time but we'll take some comfort from the fact that we came up against a team as good as any I've seen for years," said former captain and assistant coach Matthew Primus .
Said another former captain and 2004 premiership star, Gavin Wanganeen: "It just goes to show that Geelong were awesome. That's what I read into it."
Too much went awry against such marauding opposition. Coming into the game, Port was the second-highest scoring team in the competition. Its attack was obliterated and the team kicked just six goals. In all but four of the 24 games which preceded the grand final, Port produced more running bounces than its opposition and yet in the face of Geelong's pressure retreated into a halting, possession-laden style of football that was counter-intuitive to all that the year told it.
At half-time, Port had the top-four possession winners on the ground and trailed by 52 points. It had the top three by the game's merciful end.
"We weren't able to fire a shot," Primus said.
"But I don't think it will do any serious damage to us. We'll have a look at it and move on. It will motivate us through the pre-season. We've got a pretty strong group of guys here and we're a strong club.
"We won't get down. I don't think it will affect us in the long run other than to motivate us even more.
"We'll look at the year. There was a million and one positives to take out of it and one bad day on the big stage but if you look at everything else we played in a grand final. We'll keep reminding them of that."
