Coach Matthew Primus says Port Adelaide’s quest for respect faces its greatest challenge against Essendon in Saturday’s AFL encounter.

Primus said the round one victory of St Kilda counted for nothing unless Port were competitive against the Bombers at Etihad Stadium.

“For us to get away from home, to play a big team in Melbourne, is our greatest challenge,” Primus told reporters on Friday.

“We have got a bigger challenge playing away from home, playing a team that is rising and wanting to be a force in the AFL – so I think it’s a greater challenge than last week.”

Primus said winning back respect at Port was critical after last year’s worst-ever AFL season which featured just three wins.

“No doubt it’s still about earning respect and I think the whole year will be about that,” he said.

“But it’s about earning respect amongst each other and as a footy club and that will flow on to the rest of the football community.

“It’s about us understanding where we were last year and what we have to do to get that respect back amongst each other.”

Forward John Butcher will miss the match with bleeding near a hamstring tendon, with Port recalling defender Jackson Trengove from a pre-season broken finger.

Essendon, who pipped North Melbourne in round one, lost Heath Hocking (concussion) and Cale Hooker (ankle) to injury.

The Bombers summoned Sam Lonergan and Jake Carlisle for a match Primus hoped wasn’t a high-scoring shoot-out.

“We understand Essendon play a pretty fast brand of football,” Primus said.

“And we want to move the ball pretty quickly too.

“But we certainly don’t want to get into a shoot-out with them, we want to play a contested style of footy similar to last week.

“Our intensity and competitiveness … that is all we’re striving to do every game.

“And as much as the (round one) win was great, we got over it really quickly.

“We have to make sure as a football club we prepare to play with that same intensity on the road, away from our home fans.”