Zak Butters in worrying revelation as Port Adelaide rocked by more bad news after finals loss

Port Adelaide's fallout from the ugly preliminary final loss to Geelong has continued after it was revealed Zak Butters was sent to hospital after a worrying rib injury on Thursday night. Port Adelaide were left shellshocked after Geelong hammered the home side by 84 points to start their AFL finals campaign.

And as Ken Hinkley cops the backlash for yet another disastrous display during the AFL finals, he will also be concerned about the fitness of star Butters. Geelong's Jack Bowes left Butters in pain after he was crunched in the first quarter in a tackle after producing just eight disposals.

"He is OK, he copped one in the ribs...struggled to get some air into his lungs at half-time," Port Adelaide general manager of football Chris Davies said during the break. Butters was then subbed out one minute into the third quarter and sent to hospital due to his rib injury. Hinkley noted after Butters was voted as the 'toughest player' in the league, but the rib injury must have been bad enough for him to head off the field.

“He got a whack in the ribs and obviously he couldn’t go on, so that’s a pretty good indication that he’s pretty sore,” Hinkley said after the game. “But we’ll wait and see what happens with the scans and hope that he’s OK.

“He’s voted the toughest player in the AFL by his peers and he couldn’t go out there again, so it does (make you think) Zak must be reasonably sore. But I don’t have any evidence or information to give.”

Port Adelaide and Hinkley are hoping the 23-year-old's injury isn't serious and he will be available to play in the home final against either the Western Bulldogs or Hawthorn. The Western Bulldogs will host the Hawks on Friday night to determine who progresses.

And while Butters' fitness is a major concern for the fans and coaching staff, Hinkley has quickly ruled out mass changes to the team that was utterly humiliated at home. Port Adelaide's record across the last few years in the AFL finals has been horrid, but Hinkley is confident the team can turn it around. "The group has been pretty consistent with what they've been able to do," he said.

"And I'm going to trust that they can be as consistent again straight away next week. We can't make wholesale changes at this time of the year."

Ken Hinkley faces criticism after poor AFL finals showing

Hinkley was quite critical of his team's performance and admitted the team has been let down in the big games across the last couple of years. “The reality is we believe the group are better than that, but for the next 24 hours we have to live with that performance.

“We have to live with the fact that our last three or four finals haven’t been at the level we need them to be. Those questions come about once the game turns badly.

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“Maybe there is a bit of a moment where they dwell on stuff that they didn’t want to happen that did happen, I think that’s fair, but we hit the lead there at one point and it felt like they were still OK and we were playing OK at that point. We were probably lucky to be that close but there’s no doubt about the question, and how they feel about that, but I’ve asked them to quickly unpack what tonight was and then get themselves ready to go again.”

Port Adelaide's last four finals games:

• 84-point loss to Geelong - 2024 qualifying final

• 23-point loss to GWS - 2023 semi-final

• 48-point loss to Brisbane - 2023 qualifying final

• 71-point loss to Western Bulldogs - 2021 preliminary final