Port Adelaide Magpies eye a spot in the finals after win over Bulldogs Port Adelaide's Graham Johncock takes a mark in front of Bulldogs defender Josh Waldhuter. PORT Adelaide has regained the respect of the competition and stormed into finals contention with a two-point win over Central District on Saturday. It was the first time the Magpies had won at Elizabeth in 10 years and just as importantly was their fourth straight win this season after toppling North, South and Norwood in the past month. Although Port Adelaide slightly held the upper-hand in a constant arm-wrestle yesterday, there was a feeling of inevitability that Central District would claw them back when it mattered. When the Bulldogs hit the front in the last term and were kicking with a howling breeze, Port Adelaide of the past would have rolled over. But not this group. They fought, scrapped, tackled, and threw themselves at the footy and it was defender Kory Beard - who had been outstanding all day - who crept forward and kicked the match-winning goal. The gritty win was also built on huge final quarters from Nick Madden and Brett Ebert, and lion-hearted games from James Meiklejohn and Sam Gray. "There's a lot of heart built in this group to do what they've done in the past month," Port Adelaide coach Ken McGregor said. They've had a lot of challenges thrown at them, lead changes and they haven't given in once so if they keep doing that they're going to be a danger to any side in the competition. It was never going to be a pretty game, we knew it was going to be tough with the conditions and it would come down to contested ball - and in the end we were lucky enough to be in front when the siren went. We lost both quarters with the wind, so one way of looking at it is we wasted our chances but look at the positive side - we still managed to fight so hard against it to win the game. The Bulldogs never really got going. They were often beaten to the ball, made uncharacteristic skill errors and lacked a genuine target to kick to inside 50. But the most damaging aspect was how so many Port Adelaide players were able to find time and space to hurt the Dogs on the overlap. Coach Roy Laird said his side fumbled the footy and had a poor workrate. "We couldn't get the ball off them well enough when they were in control and that summed up the fact that I don't think we came here prepared to work as hard as we have in recent times," Laird said. Clearly our mindset wasn't good enough going into the game and we gave them too much space. Our strength recently has been an even contribution and I thought today we had some poor players. Captain Paul Thomas kicked two crucial goals when his side was under the pump in the second half, Brad Symes was brilliant across half back and Josh Waldhuter kept Graham Johncock goalless. But it wasn't enough. The Magpies had all the play in the first term but wasted their chances and Trent Goodrem's opportunist goal gave Central a four-point lead at the first break. It took Port Adelaide until 10 minutes into the second quarter to kick their first goal through Josh Thurgood but that sparked he and his team into gear. Thurgood kicked three for the quarter and the Magpies stole the lead back. They had the Dogs on the ropes in the third and could have landed the knockout blow but Goodrem's second goal gave the home side the acendancy at three-quarter-time. Madden's thumping 50m goal into the wind to start the final term set the tone for Port Adelaide which refused to surrender and survived a nervous final few minutes when they had to control possession. BEST - Port Adelaide: Gray, Beard, Meiklejohn, Thurgood, Ebert, Kirkwood. Central District: Symes, Waldhuter, Thomas, Boyd, Collier. SCORERS - Port Adelaide: Thurgood 3.1, Gray 1.1, Young, Beard, Madden, Grove 1.0, Kulikowski, Newton, Raikiwasa 0.1. Central District: Thomas, Goodrem 2.1, O'Hara, Schiller, Jenner, Templeton 1.0, Collier 0.1. UMPIRES - T. Philp, A. Crosby, C. Deboy. At Playford Alive Oval.