HAWTHORN's final-term surge spooked Port Adelaide, reinforcing Power coach Ken Hinkley's view that brave footy is most important when a side's back is up against the wall.

The Power dominated Saturday night's game early, beginning proceedings with seven unanswered goals and leading by 58 points in the second quarter.

They anticipated the reigning premiers would control momentum at some point, and that they did.

Port's attack dried up as it simply tried to withstand the onslaught, which led to Hinkley wishing his side had shown more bravery to continue pushing forward.

On the ground captain Travis Boak could feel that brave footy slip away with each inside 50 the Hawks generated in the last quarter.

As he walked from the field after the eight-point win defender Jack Hombsch told AFL.com.au the Power retreated too far when the going got really tough.

"We always knew they would come back at us, they won the flag last year and they're a bloody good team," Hombsch said.

"We managed to hold them off in the end, but it was certainly nervous times.

"Once a team gets a bit of momentum on the ball seems to go their way and you've just got to try and withstand the storm.

"Once they kicked a couple of goals we started to go in our shells a little bit and then we obviously flooded back late in the game.

"It just felt like we were kicking it out of our rebound 50 and they were marking it and kicking it straight back in.

"That's really hard to start going again from there."

Hombsch conceded just two goals on Saturday night, both to gun forward Jack Gunston in the third and fourth quarters.

The Power backman said it was difficult to keep up with Gunston's outstanding lateral movement, but sung the praises of teammate Alipate Carlile, who kept superstar Jarryd Roughead goalless.

Roughead kicked six goals in last year's preliminary final against Port and seven last week against the Western Bulldogs.

He shaped as a matchwinner for the Hawks but was blanketed by Carlile and held to his worst output since round 17 last year – a goalless day against Adelaide.