Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams reckons four quarters of the Power's best football will be good enough to knock off AFL yardstick Geelong at Skilled Stadium on Sunday.

Trouble is, over the first 11 rounds Port have looked about as likely to play four quarters of their best football as the Cats have looked likely to fall into a heap.

And in a competition where one quarter of poor football often costs a team a game, Port's tendency to save their worst for last, most dramatically in home losses to Brisbane and Carlton, does not augur well for their visit to Skilled Stadium.

"Our best form will beat them and we really have to believe in that," Williams said.

"We have to see if we can get four quarters of our best form together and, if we can, we're pretty confident we'll win.

"There's no guarantees. We're playing the best side for the last year and a half so it's going to be tough.

"No one else has beaten them down there since we beat them (in round 21 last year) so it's going to be a huge task."

The task has been made somewhat easier by the omission through injury of Geelong's defensive general Matthew Scarlett and the Power's recall of A-class midfielder Shaun Burgoyne following his highly contentious three-match suspension.

Also into the Port 22 are hard-working defensive utilities Nick Lower and Jacob Surjan, who will help add more grunt factor to a side that barely registered a yelp in the last term against the Blues.

Not surprisingly, Port's training emphasis this week has been on contested football, contradicting Williams' post-match pronouncement following the Carlton lost that contested-ball statistics do not necessarily means all that much.

"Maybe a little more (contested work) than usual but it's always part of our training," Williams said of a Wednesday session where some of his exhortations to the players would have blistered the Alberton paint had they been unleashed indoors.

"The amount of time we do physical one-on-one and crash and bash training maybe it doesn't reflect it all the time in the game, but we'd like to think the more you practice it the better you become at it.

"Everyone felt better given the fact we trained that way on Wednesday. You always put a focus on something, and this week it's not inside 50m kicks or kick-outs, it was more on winning those contested balls.

"But we're playing Geelong as well and we're very mindful of how they play in that area, so it's a bit about last week but certainly this week as well."

There is already a feeling around Port Adelaide that 2008 is a "wasted year", bearing many unfortunate similarities to 2005 when the Power slipped from much lauded premiers to mid-table mediocrities.

Should Port turn on their best football against the Cats and even carry off an unlike win, supporters will be well entitled to ask why the players have chosen to lift their games when it is almost too late to salvage the season.

Williams, though, resolved to look exclusively forward.

"You can't do that, you can't do that (look back on opportunities missed)," he said.

"You only add up at the end of the year and we venture down there to win, that's what we go down to do you can't look back, what if and if only, those things happen and you move on."

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