Fremantle’s depleted defence doesn’t mean much to Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley.
The Dockers have lost two key AFL defenders, Luke McPharlin (thigh) and Zac Dawson (ankle), for Saturday’s Adelaide Oval fixture.
Their absences give Port a weakness to exploit, but Hinkley is more worried about whether his players can get enough of the ball into their attacking zones.
“Against Fremantle, one of the biggest challenges you have is getting it in there enough. They’re a great side at restricting (forward) entries,” Hinkley told reporters on Friday.
“We need to make sure we provide enough of those entries for our forwards to work because our forwards will present a significant risk to them.
“But they won’t help us if we don’t get the ball inside forward 50.”
Port, sitting equal top of the table, will mark two milestones with forward Jay Schulz playing his 150th AFL game and reigning club champion Chad Wingard his 50th AFL game.
Schulz leads the league’s goal kicking with 24 majors, three more than next-best Luke Breust from Hawthorn.
Port also regained fullback Alipate Carlile and damaging midfielder Hamish Hartlett, who missed last week’s win against Greater Western Sydney with illness.
The Power also summoned Kane Mitchell for his first AFL game this season, again elevating the hard-running utility from the rookie list, while omitting Paul Stewart and Ben Newton and unable to select backman Tom Jonas (groin).
And the Power will be unable to consider ruckman Jarrad Redden for the rest of the season after the 23-year-old, who was yet to play an AFL game this year, had more knee surgery.
“He has had a bit of a bad trot, I’m sure he’ll get better and recover and he’ll come back and still have a great career,” Hinkley said.
The Port coach was wary of the sixth-placed Dockers, who replaced McPharlin and Dawson with backman Alex Silvagni, also to play his first AFL game of the season, and speedster Stephen Hill, sidelined from last week’s derby win against West Coast with a hamstring strain.