Port Adelaide caretaker Matthew Primus admits a 94-point thrashing to St Kilda was a hit to his coaching hopes for 2011, but says he won't pick teams for his benefit.

The Power were ruthlessly cast aside by the Saints at Etihad Stadium on Sunday in a 23.13 (151) to 8.9 (57) demolition.

Port's defeat was easily their worst performance since Primus was appointed acting coach after Mark Williams was sacked, following a six-goal loss to the Western Bulldogs and wins over Adelaide and Hawthorn.

The Power only just avoided surpassing their heaviest defeat of the entire season, the 95-point thrashing at the hands of Geelong in round four.

Primus conceded the result did not aid his chances of being appointed Port's next full-time coach.

"It doesn't do it any good," he said.

"But as a group we're going to be judged on the seven weeks.

"We'd been heading in the right direction, but this is a real setback so we've got to find out if we want to bounce back.

"We've got two home games, three more games to go for the year, a quick turnaround (before) Saturday night and we've got to focus our energies on trying to beat West Coast.

"We'll learn some really good stuff out of this tomorrow, but that doesn't sit well, learning.

"We're a really young group - we had an average of 23 years and 60 games - so we'll learn something out of it, but it was just real unacceptable the way defensively we were torn apart by the Saints."

Primus said he would refuse the temptation to select a team and coach for self-interest, as he hoped to get more games into the likes of Michael Broadbent and Andrew Moore, who represent Port's future.

"I'm not going to pick a team for me to win," Primus said.

"I'm going to pick a team that gets games into players who have earned them and for the future of our club, not just our senior players or guys I think are going to go better."

Port's day started on a bad note, as the banner tore in the wind - the stadium roof was open - and the Power missed their first four scoring attempts.

St Kilda booted the first five goals of the game, led by 50 points during the second quarter and rammed home their dominance with seven goals to two in the last quarter.

Primus said Port could not match St Kilda's maintained pressure and that his side entered the game with the wrong mindset.

"There would have to be a bit of complacency, a (thinking) that it's happened for two weeks, we've been very good at it, we're just going to roll out there and do it again," he said.

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