Port Adelaide coach Matthew Primus has warned his patience has its limits as he looks to take the struggling Power up the ladder next season.
Second last in 2011 under Primus - in his first full season as an AFL coach - the Power endured something of a nightmare, winning just three games as the club struggled with serious financial issues that eventually led to an AFL bail-out.
Although the financial problems hurt the club's football department, badly restricting the number of coaches, some critics also felt Primus was too easy on his under-performing players as the once proud club struggled to draw a crowd and almost claimed the wooden spoon.
Speaking after training began once again this week, Primus was playing down expectations for the season ahead, all-but admitting the young side needed another season of gelling before it was any hope of making finals.
However, the coach said he couldn't afford to tolerate players who didn't show improvement over the long summer and season ahead.
"Every player on the list can improve on some facet in their game," declared Primus on Adelaide radio station fiveAA.
"(Last season) we had a core group of players who hadn't played enough footy together and they still haven't."
"They're going to achieve that this year... we're going to play them more together, but every year your expectations have got to get a little bit higher."
"That's what this pre-season is all about, making sure that come February they've improved in some little way in their game."
"So I'll be patient to an extent but then we're going to need these guys to step up and play better footy and be able to compete for a lot longer in games than what they did last year."
Primus identified contested football as his side's main deficiency last season.
"Our contested footy fell off the face of the earth last year, so we're focusing pretty heavily on that," he said.
"And you gotta have that to be competitive, that's our biggest focus, along with making sure the guys get through their next four or five months of pre-season."
Primus has also said Port Adelaide will be making a play for disaffected Collingwood defender Leon Davis, the coach saying that he'd had discussions with Davis over the last week about joining the Power.