Well the mighty Port Adelaide are heading back to China to play at Shanghai's Jiangwan stadium to a crowd of confused onlookers. Not the Chinese because they won't be watching. I'm referring to the Expats and travellers watching Port or football in general and asking WTF is this.
This will be Ports 3rd match in China having won their first 2 games over pretty non-existent competition. St Kilda will be travelling for the first time having been roped into it probably because they're sick of missing out on every marquee game in Melbourne because everyone forgets they exist.
Port Adelaide entered the year not knowing what to expect and we still feel pretty much the same way after getting smacked by a bog average hawthorn side by 31 points having beat a very good west coast side this year in Perth. But there is good news port fans! Just like Port exists to give away questionable long unearned contracts Saints exist to give Port wins.
Port v Saints last 5 games
Port have won all 5 of their last 5 games. Lol. How is that possible?
Saints head into this game 11th on the ladder only behind Port on percentage. It says something about just how s**t everyone believes this saints list is that sitting 11th with 5 wins is viewed as a great result. They are playing some pretty good football though with wins over hawthorn and the dockers in Perth and even a close loss to the same magpies team that made us look stupid. Their surprising start to the year is obviously owed to their coach Alan Richardson having the decency to shut the * up while Brett Ratten does his thing.
THE KEY MATCH UPS
the key match up will be in the coaches box which means we're ****ed.
luckily for us the game is played out on the field, or rice paddy in this case.
the saints midfield has a strong Seb ross, rejuvenated and dangerous Billings and guys like Steele savage and Gresham and co running through who can push the ball outside and use it. Teams hurt us coming out of stoppages cleanly and saints have the personnel who can do that to us. wines Boak and Motlop (oh god are we really going to run Motlop through the middle again?) and co have to win first touch otherwise we're terrible defensively on the spread and a half fit Rockliff will only make that worse. in order to win saints need to hurt us here.
membry bruce and Parker are a unique forward line that average 4 goals between them and lets saints smalls like Kent lonie and Gresham play as real goal sneak rovers as they don't have to pretend to be key forwards drawing the high ball. what a novel idea. Parker has been a good find and I can only assume defenders won't go near him because he looks sketchy as *. He must have been in Baltimore filming episodes of The Wire hence why he wasn't previously drafted.
ports kids in Rozee and Duursma are going to make the saints look stupid , and probably a few senior ports players as well.
look I can go through all the statistics and graphs and flow charts and tell you about our master game plan, and saints gameplay and how it will be a battle between two plans but I'm not Janus or REH. Janus will tell you about the pleasures of a great well worked plan unfolding but I find the best pleasure in pure dumb luck. like watching a guy get hit in the balls, or someone tripping over and face planting.
luckily Port face just such an opponent this week. Like forming a guard of honour on ground to watch Robbie (I couldn't normally kick over Jackie Chan) Gray kick a game winner on the buzzer from 50. No matter how bad we feel about Port we will always get 1 game a year against Saints who will inevitably trip over their own feet and hand us the win. Because that's what they do, and that's how we win.
Port by 22 points
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