PORT ADELAIDE 4.3 6.8 11.11 13.15 (93)
COLLINGWOOD 1.0 4.3 6.7 9.8 (62)
Goals: Port Adelaide: R Gray 5, S Gray 2, Dixon, Wingard, Impey, Neade, White, Wines. Collingwood: Moore 3, Fasolo 2, Crocker, Reid, Brown, de Goey.
Best: Port Adelaide: R Gray, White, Wines, Hartlett, S Gray, Pittard. Collingwood: Sidebottom, Pendlebury, Treloar, Grundy, Howe.
Umpires: Ben Ryan, Troy Pannell, Jeff Dalgleish.
Crowd: 35,933 at MCG.
There's been much scepticism all season about Port Adelaide regardless of how many wins the Power have clocked up.
Despite their current top-four status, there was plenty even in the lead-up to Saturday's MCG clash with Collingwood.
Never mind the fact the Pies sat nine spots lower on the ladder with two fewer wins, or even the Power's recent history at the venue, four wins in their past five, indeed a 67-point belting of the Pies the last time they'd played at the 'GÂ a year ago.
Saturday's sequel, an emphatic 31-point win over the Pies, still might not persuade a few that the Power are the real deal. But you can say with some certainty that they are a much, much better team than Collingwood.
While it took well into the third term for the visitors to build a margin they could feel certain was a winning gap, so superior were they in general play, so much more dangerous up forward, and so much slicker in their ball use, that the difference in this game was far more than a glance at the scores would indicate.
Port were on a mission at the start of this game, one which yielded four first-quarter goals but could easily have produced seven or eight such was their edge over the Pies.
The Power had already missed a couple of opportunities when Jarman Impey raced in to post the opener. Robbie Gray made it two with a lovely banana from a forward pocket, Port speedster Matthew White setting that one up and seemingly everywhere on the ground. Not into time-on, he'd already had five touches, three score involvements and a "poster".
It was Alex Fasolo who finally got Collingwood on the board, but rather than a steadier, that merely proved the catalyst for another Port burst, Jake Neade replying almost instantly after a quick handball from Travis Boak.
And the Pies were in a deal of bother after Gray got his second from a courageous mark following a long driving ball from Charlie Dixon.
A margin of 21 points already come quarter-time was arguably a decent result for Collingwood given what had unfolded. And the Pies did turn out in the second term like a team which knew it might have got off the hook and could still make their opponent pay.
Skipper Scott Pendlebury, already conspicuous, had a massive quarter with a dozen further disposals. Fasolo booted a second. Jordan De Goey, very quiet, suddenly exploded from a stoppage and snapped a ripper on his left foot.
But Port sensed the tide turning, too. And they also had their own trump card in Gray. By the long break, the brilliant forward/midfielder had four goals and a couple of score assists, and his two goals within three minutes when the Pies started to threaten were crucial.
The first saw him pounce on a quick centre bounce clearance and snap on his right. He followed that up with a beautiful mark running with the flight and under severe heat from Tyson Goldsack, duly converted to another goal.
Collingwood did at least keep hanging around for a while. The Pies booted the last goal of the first half, and the first of the second. But no period emphasised the yawning gap in class here than what followed in the third term.
Gray continued his influence by cleverly putting a handball into the path of White to soccer one through. He did the job himself for the next, his fifth before midway through the third term.
From the next bounce, Chad Wingard smacked one home from all of 60 metres. Sam Gray marked and popped through another after Impey's centre. And when Ollie Wines gratefully cashed in on a free near goal, Port had added five goals in a row, four in under six minutes, and the difference now was 42 points.
Everything that happened subsequently, a "hanger" by Brodie Grundy, a couple of late goals to the very quiet Darcy Moore, was, in the context of the result, mere window dressing. Not that five-goals-plus isn't a decent margin anyway, but this one felt, on the balance of play, a lot closer to 10.
So it's five out of six now for Port at the MCG, with one more game to play there in the lead-up to the finals, good reconnaissance for what's coming up in a couple of months. Which is now a "gimme".
The doubters aren't likely to go away before then, but it hardly matters, really. Because neither are Port.
Votes
Robbie Gray (PA) 9
Matthew White (PA) 8
Ollie Wines (PA) 7
Hamish Hartlett (PA) 7
Steele Sidebottom (Coll) 7