DESPITE a dominant lead a three quarter time, Port Adelaide coach Lauren Arnell was left again ruing what might have been as her Power side conceded the four points in a record-breaking comeback from St Kilda on the weekend.

In the end the Power went down by 11 points as St Kida booted a sixth goal in the final 90 seconds to come away with the 8.5 (53) to 6.6 (42) result. It told a tale of the last quarter, with Port leading by 27 points heading into the last change, but failing to score in quarter four, while the Saints piled on 6.3.

“It felt like probably for most of the first three quarters we had the game on our terms,” Arnell said. “We just didn’t show enough of ourselves in that last quarter and so the word ‘consistency’ keeps popping up for us, and at this moment in times it’s incredibly disappointing.

“We just have to keep finding more ways to improve in those moments and stem momentum of teams when they get a run on like that and so our group’s really disappointed. “I thought the first three quarters were mostly on our terms in this game and we just let them play their footy and get on top of us pretty comfortably in that last quarter.”

When considering the reason behind the fadeout, Arnell said it could be “any number” or factors that lead to the capitulation and conceding half a dozen goals.

“I think we could come up with any number of reasons why we haven’t managed the game well enough in that last quarter and then the reality is we just need to be better,” she said. “We’re performing at the highest level of competition, other teams are going to come at us in big moments and we’re going to have to learn pretty quickly.”

While admittedly proud of her side’s pressure for three quarters, Arnell said they had to do it for four, however young gun Shineah Goody (12 tackles) was one such player who impressed throughout the game.

“She was asked to do half a role on (Tyanna) Smith around stoppage and I thought she did that really, really well for most of the game,” Arnell said. “She’s someone who works her backside out and is incredibly talented so I mean I back our group to take the lessons that we need to.

“We’ve got the Bulldogs at home next week but right now it’s heavily disappointing that we didn’t play four quarters of footy this week.”

The clash against the Bulldogs is somewhat of a mini-elimination final with both sides sitting 2-5 and two games outside the top eight, with six wins minimum expected to secure a finals spot meaning four of the last five must be victories.

While the season is not quite going perfectly for last year’s preliminary finalists, Arnell commended the efforts of a number of young player standing up, and will take learnings from the disappointing last quarter.

“Lily Paterson got her hands dirty really nicely and found plenty of footy particularly early in the signs and i thought Jas Sowden showed some good steps forward and Lozzy Young in her second game of footy, Piper Window comes back and had enormous first half for us,” Arnell said.

“There’s some young players there who are improving all the time and we just have to keep showing this group how to step up and manage those moments particularly when other teams get momentum and we’ve not done that that overly well this year outside of that Melbourne win.”