Port Adelaide captain Dom Cassisi described his side’s AFL round-two loss to Essendon as a good learning day.

Port, 16th last season, have shown themselves to be a better side in 2012 with an upset win over St Kilda last week and a 25-point loss to Essendon on Saturday at Etihad Stadium.

The visitors trailed by only two points at three-quarter time before Essendon booted five goals to Port’s one in the final term to win 16.15 (111) to 13.8 (86).

Jay Schulz (four goals) and Justin Westhoff (three goals) were lively despite Essendon dominating the inside-50 count 63-45.

Port coach Matthew Primus said it would have been nice to have big forward John Butcher back in action against Essendon. Butcher is likely to return from hamstring tendinitis for next Saturday’s home game against Sydney.

“As a midfield group, we need to be able to play four quarters of competitive footy to give our forwards a chance to win the game,” Cassisi said.

“When we get it in our forward line, we often score.

“It’s a big learning day for us and we need to improve.”

Trailing by 21 points at halftime, Port should have been further behind on the scoreboard if Essendon had been able to make better use of their dominance up forward, Primus admitted.

However, the coach was pleased with his side’s ability to stick to their task and turn around the centre clearances which Port dominated after halftime.

“They (Essendon) were terrific in the first half, apart from probably their finishing. It could have been all over then,” Primus said.

“I spoke to the players at halftime and said because of their lack of finish, they’ve given us an opportunity to still be involved in the game.

“To our players’ credit, they were able to still believe in that and get involved.

“Up until the last five or six minutes, the game was right on the line.

“We just made some really poor decisions from the word go that cost us lots of scores and meant we played the game in our opposition’s half a lot.

“We’ll just go back to the review and keep teaching our players what to do in certain situations.”