PORT ADELAIDE will focus on curbing a growing trend of leaking late first-term goals, as the club prepares to take on Carlton on Sunday.

Despite matching it with both North Melbourne and Richmond in the past fortnight, significant margins at quarter-time has meant the Power have been forced to play catch-up.

And those margins have been generated with short, furious bursts of scoring; in the past two weeks the Power have conceded 10 goals after the 20 minute mark of the first quarter.

Senior assistant coach Alan Richardson said it was expected that a side as young and inexperienced as Port would suffer lapses of concentration at times.

But he hoped reminders delivered by club runners Tyson Edwards and Andrew Rogers would help maintain the players' concentration.

"At the minute we're having a real go for 20 minutes and then the back end of the first quarter the boys' concentration, a little bit of fatigue starting to set in, have just started to fall away," Richardson admitted.

"What we're going to do about it is just to make sure we focus and concentrate and perhaps use the runner a bit more at the back end of the quarter, just to remind the guys [that] discipline's required to be competitive for the whole of the quarter. 

"We spoke to the leadership group and that group themselves is a fairly young group, just to make sure that we're just remind each other.

"As soon as it ticks over into time-on we'll make sure we’ve got a generic message going around to everyone's that on the ground."


The positive spin on the Power's past two quarter-time deficits has been their ability to finish strongly.

After trailing by 33 points at the first change against North Melbourne in round seven, they fought back to within 10 by the final siren.

The Power trailed by 37 points at quarter-time last week against Richmond, but held their own in the final three terms to go down by 41 points.

While admitting the club's lapses in concentration had to be addressed, Richardson said his side's end to games was telling of the team's character.

"Overall fatigue's not an issue - the back end of our games has been quite impressive," he said.

"We've certainly won more quarters than we've lost. 

"It's been a real testament to their character and confidence in their bodies that they can finish off games so positively."

Harry Thring is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_Harry.