PORT Adelaide’s recent resurgence came to a halt against Hawthorn on Saturday and Power coach Mark Williams put the focus squarely on his onball brigade after the 15-point loss in Launceston.

It snapped a three-game winning streak that looked set to be extended after the Power managed to open up a 38-point lead early in the second quarter, but the Hawks were able to wrest control of the centre square, and the match, much to the dismay of the coach.

“We kicked 100 points against a team that hasn’t lost so obviously there are some positives there, but without doubt, we got smashed out of the centre square; they kicked a lot of goals from there and that’s the game,” Williams said.

“As far as we were concerned it was probably the worst we’ve ever played in the centre square. We changed the ruckmen, we changed the people in there, we tried to have extra players behind the ball, we tried one of everything and to their credit that’s how they won the game.

“What happened was we lost the [effective] hit; that would be the first thing. Secondly, they got hold of the ball and scored from it and that’s how we went wrong.

“I didn’t think we played well. You combine whatever they were working on with us playing poorly and you’ll get that result.”

Adding to Williams’ displeasure was the fact that his side was aided by the absence of Hawk ball magnet Luke Hodge through injury.

“I don’t think anyone doubts that Hawthorn’s got some great goal-scoring capabilities,” he said.

“Probably their dominance out of the centre square wasn’t something that we had anticipated, especially with Hodge not playing, but obviously Chad Cornes isn’t playing and a couple of others that we might have been able to put in there as well.”

Williams gave brief mention to the job Tom Logan did in limiting veteran Hawk Shane Crawford to just nine possessions and was pleased with the early form of skipper Warren Tredrea, but admitted the loss was a setback he didn’t need as he tries to engineer a path to the finals.

“We’re one of those teams that will have to battle like hell to see if we’re a chance,” he said.

“We’ve got a pretty tough draw coming up, so we’ll have to see what we can do as far as winning against some of the fancied clubs.”