Port Adelaide star Orazio Fantasia is confident of playing in the preliminary final despite a niggling knee injury causing concern in Power’s 86-43 win over Geelong on Friday night.
Geelong were unable to give Tom Hawkins more reason to celebrate in his 300th game with a loss their coach described as “poor” and “diabolical”. The Cats will now face the winner of either Sydney or GWS to keep their finals campaign alive.
Meanwhile Port Adelaide have the week off with the preliminary final possibly set to take place at home at Adelaide Oval as the nation juggles an ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
The extra week off will be music to Fantasia’s ears after the electric small forward was subbed out late in the game against the Cats with a broken nose and needing ice on his knee.
“He gave it a knock and we weren’t going to take a chance,” Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley said.
“He was complaining it was a bit sore so we were in a position where we certainly weren’t going to take that chance.
“We’ve got two weeks now so he’s got plenty of time to get over that I imagine.
“We didn’t need to take anymore risk.”
Fantasia had surgery in June and missed round 11 to round 20, but it appears his knee issue remains.
“I felt a bit of a click,” Fantasia said after the win.
“It feels nice now I’ve had a bit of ice on it but it’s a little bit sore.
“I knew I needed to manage it in the backend of the season.
“I think I’ll be fine with a break. It was good I could have that break last week and have a break this week.
“I think the medical staff have helped me out massively knowing i would miss a fair chunk but to get me right for the pointy end.”
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Fantasia was lethal with minimal touches, scoring four goals from nine disposals as the Power cruised to their seventh-straight victory, and their second consecutive win over a top-four side.
“I though that was some of the best footy we’ve played all year,” Travis Boak said post-game.
“20,000 here, they were so loud tonight. There’s no doubt they helped us get the win.”
Other than Fantasia, Port Adelaide defender Aliir Aliir was the other obvious standout, nullifying Geelong’s forwards with five intercept marks and three spoils in the first quarter alone.
Port Adelaide’s strategy of putting Aliir on numerous smaller forwards instead of the likes of Hawkins and Jeremy Cameron, worked perfectly as he suffocated the Cats’ attack.
“He is unreal. I still don’t think he gets the credit he deserves,” Power’s Ollie Wines told Fox Footy.
“He’s fit into his role really well this year. He probably didn’t have the opportunities at Sydney so we’re so privileged to have him.
“He was able to take the sting out of the inside 50s.”
Hinkley was similarly impressed with Aliir’s output on Friday night.
“He was really strong,” he said in his press conference.
“He’s had an amazing year, everyone knows that.
“Aliir played his end really well for us.”
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Geelong Cats coach Chris Scott was scathing in his summary of the team’s performance against the Power and expressed extreme disappointment that they failed to deliver a better result for Hawkins’ milestone game.
“It was a poor performance,” he said in his post-match press conference.
“Virtually everything that could go wrong did go wrong.”
“I think we had three forward 50 tackles for the night which is diabolical really,” he added.
“We kicked it to them in our back half which is uncharacteristic, the ball bounced out of our forward half and we didn’t challenge them well enough and then we opened ourselves up with the desire to score which is always the risk you take when you need to turn things on their head.”
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