Port Adelaide coach Matthew Primus says his team's drought-breaking AFL win over Richmond in Darwin reinforces what they can do when they fight out an entire match.

Despite some early dominance in general play, the Power trailed by nine points at halftime, but showed the type of character that has been too rarely evident this season to win 13.11 (89) to 10.14 (74).

It was the club's first win in six games and just their second for the year, but Primus said the hard-fought victory over in-form opposition should build belief.

"I think moreso (it will create) belief and confidence amongst each other about how we want to play and how we want to go about our football," the Power coach said.

"It's only our second win for the year, but by no means are we getting carried away with it.

"For the players it shows they have a bit of resilience. It's been a difficult six weeks, but they've kept on backing up and proving how they want go about their footy.

"We played against a pretty good opposition, who've had a good bit of form in the last couple of months and they got their just deserts, the players."

Primus said Port had previously only produced the intensity they needed for parts of games.

He said their ability to maintain it for a full match against the Tigers vindicated the coaching staff's belief that the issue had been mental, rather than physical.

"We've always been of the view it's our concentration and our ability to keep sticking towards our game plan rather than anything else, and we've been drumming that into the guys," he said.

He said the challenge was now to repeat that effort at home to Carlton next weekend.

"We'd like to build on it for sure. It's a tough competition, and we've got to back up. All it does is show the players the (value of our) beliefs on how we want to play ... we'll bounce back and look forward to Carlton."

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