NO non-Victorian AFL club requests games at the enclosed arena on Melbourne’s western Docklands in its annual fixture wish list to league headquarters. It is always about the MCG (with a want to be well versed on the particular ways of the AFL grand final venue).

Port Adelaide could be the exception to this theme.

Since the start of the 2021 home-and-away season to Friday night’s critical 14-point win against Carlton, Port Adelaide has won 11 of its past 12 matches at the indoor arena. It has not been so dominant in the past 12 games at home at Adelaide Oval (seven wins).

With a playbook designed to emphasise speed in ball movement and to compact the territory battle in the forward third of the field, it is not surprising that Port Adelaide is well suited to a ground many consider encourages a fast-paced game and higher scoring more so than any of the league’s outdoor venues.

Not that Friday night’s battle at the Docklands – with the exception of Carlton’s seven-goal second term – was the hallmark of shoot-out football. The tale of the scoreboard was: Port Adelaide 79, Carlton 65 and a 144-point aggregate score that marks the lowest accumulated tally since Port Adelaide’s previous visit to the Docklands (122 points; Port Adelaide 62, St Kilda 60). There is a “Plan B” ….

In those 11 wins from Port Adelaide’s past 12 visits to the Docklands, only four have been with a team score breaking the watershed 100-point barrier. So much for the theory that the Docklands’ weather-protected deck – and the note that the Sherrin carries further on a kick than at outdoor venues – is a forward’s paradise and defender’s nightmare.

It also is a contrast to Port Adelaide’s previous best run at the Docklands – seven in a row from 2001-2003 with all seven wins involving Port Adelaide putting up scores of 100 points or more (108 to 150 points).

There is a distinctive note about Port Adelaide’s results at the Docklands since it left Football Park, West Lakes at the end of the 2013 home-and-away season. At that stage, Port Adelaide had a 14-25 win-loss record at the Docklands. Since calling Adelaide Oval home in 2014, the count at the 21st century ground is an impressive 18-9.

The image of Port Adelaide “feeling at home” at the Docklands contradicts all that emerged when the club was given the honour – with Essendon – of playing the first AFL game at the league’s first venue with a moving roof on March 9, 2000. Port Adelaide lost by 94 points – and did not win an AFL home-and-away game at the ground until its fifth attempt, more than a year later when it beat St Kilda by 11 points.

Perhaps the high success rate at west Melbourne is not surprising considering Adelaide Oval mirrors by width and area space closer to the Docklands deck than Football Park. The key numbers are:

Football Park – length 165 metres, width 135, area 17,495 square metres.

Adelaide Oval – length 167 metres, width 123, area 16,133 square metres.

Docklands – length 160 metres, width 129, area 16,211 square metres.

How this real estate translates to the scoreboard is a little misleading considering there is no weather factor at the ever-closed Docklands – no wind to favour one end, no risk of rain to slow down the play and no concern with a slippery ball from the well-noted dew that would descend on Football Park during night games in winter.

Port Adelaide averaged scores of 94 points in 203 AFL games at Football Park from 1997-2013. It averages almost a goal less (89 points) at Adelaide Oval – but does even better at the Docklands with a 96-point average (two points more than the league average at the ground).

Australian football does have its peculiarities from non-conforming venues to defy the AFL script of equality and uniformity. Lengths of the AFL home venues (ignoring the extra venues such as the 175-metre long Marrara Oval in Darwin) vary from Kardinia Park at Geelong as the longest at 170 metres. The SCG (even after the refit in 2007) is the shortest at 155. The MCG, as is well noted by those players who find themselves lost on the wings, is the widest at 141 metres; Kardinia Park is the narrowest at 115.

Scoring also varies – from a league-high 96-point average at the SCG to the low of 82 points at Adelaide Oval. It is 94 points the Docklands and 89 points at the MCG.

Remarkably, Port Adelaide today – by the results – is more “at home” at a venue in Melbourne than at Adelaide Oval.