Port Adelaide action man David Rodan admits a shoddy workrate cost him his spot in the Power's AFL 22 earlier in the season.

In the wake of Rodan's sensational 30-possession, 12-clearance game against Brisbane on Saturday, the popular question was: "However did this bloke get dropped?"

But the man himself admits there have been times in 2009 when he has not maintained his effort levels, getting by on the fact that his possessions are invariably eye-catching and capable of overshadowing the fact he did not get involved often enough.

Rodan said that becoming a father for the first time had also affected his focus, but the main problem had been workrate.

"That could be fair to say, yeah, just getting to the footy and getting to some more contests," he said on Wednesday.

"I tried to work on that and hopefully I can keep it up.

"I think it was a bit of outside football but also a little bit on workrate.

"I went back and saw some videos of previous years and also when I was playing my better football, I just had to go back and find that workrate again, forward and back, and came back into the side.

"I think I've done that and hopefully can continue to do so and help the club play some really good football leading into the pointy end (of the season)."

A hard-working Rodan is bad news for any AFL opponent, particularly Melbourne this week, who are riding the wave of emotion caused by popular club president Jim Stynes' cancer battle.

Rodan said there would still be plenty of emotion from the Dees, as demonstrated in their stirring home win over West Coast, but that Port had to be ready to push through that.

"They played a really good game on the weekend against West Coast and got up and obviously with the news on Jim Stynes, he's well respected around the AFL and they're playing well for him, which is good to see," Rodan said.

"But we're not going to go into it too confident.

"We've had one win and they've had a win, so if we can come off and play like we did on the weekend hopefully we'll come away with a win.

"They'll definitely be up and wanting to show their wares for Jimmy but we'll just play the way we play, fast and exciting football and if we can do that hopefully we can get the four points."

There has been some continuing disquiet about the future of Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams, who has seen his manager Ricky Nixon fly to Adelaide for talks with the Power's executive about his new contract.

However Rodan said the "quiet confidence" instilled by Williams' commitment to stay at Alberton had not yet been shaken.

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