Port Adelaide won't adopt rough-house tactics to stop Gold Coast marvel Gary Ablett, Power coach Ken Hinkley says.
Ablett endured borderline tactics from Melbourne last week when held to a season low 19 disposals.
Melbourne players constantly niggled and impeded the Suns captain in an approach which drew the ire of Gold Coast coach Guy McKenna, and AFL umpires boss Jeff Gieschen later admitted Ablett should have been paid more free kicks.
Hinkley rates Ablett as "nearly unstoppable" but says despite the success of Melbourne's controversial tactics, Port won't be repeating them in Saturday's fixture at AAMI Stadium.
"We will play within the rules definitely and do our absolute best," Hinkley told reporters on Friday.
"Gary doesn't let many things stop him.
"I have seen a fair bit of what happened last week ... Jeff Gieschen has actually said there was some stuff that probably shouldn't have been let go on.
"So we won't be looking to do that. But we will be looking to do our absolute best to make his day hard though."
Port's master tagger Kane Cornes is likely to get the job on Ablett in a game which, if Port win, would seal their return to the finals for the first time since 2007.
The eighth-placed Port have already banked 11 wins, a return which first-year head coach Hinkley admitted had surprised him.
"Have we probably performed, purely by the numbers, a bit better than I thought we would? I think I would say yes," Hinkley said.
"I'm really proud of the way they have gone about it and the club for the whole year has made significant steps forward.
"We weren't quite sure where we could go - I was new, we were coming together, we had lots of new things happening at the football club.
"Together, we have obviously done things pretty well to get to the point where we are now.
"But we want to push, we don't want to stop now. We want to just slam through and see what comes up next. We'll be pushing as hard as we possibly can to achieve as much as we can."
