PORT ADELAIDE coach Ken Hinkley has promised “fast, attacking and tough football” from his side in 2023, saying the club’s list is the best in his time at the club.
Hinkley’s outfit missed finals and finished eleventh last year, mostly due to a winless opening five games.
But Port has kept together most of its side and added talent and AFL experience with the acquisition of 2021 number one draft pick Jason Horne-Francis and exciting forwards Junior Rioli and Francis Evans from West Coast and Geelong respectively.
Horne-Francis, Rioli and Evans were introduced to members at the club’s Annual General Meeting on Friday night at the Lakes Hotel alongside draftees Tom McCallum, Tom Scully, Kyle Marshall and Nathan Barkla.
Hinkley said the playing list was the strongest he’d had since arriving at the club in 2012 and was well placed to move back into the finals in 2023.
“Our defensive game has been a strength of ours more often than not but the game is getting quicker and harder and we’re training quicker and harder than we’ve ever trained through the pre-season,” he told the audience of about 300 members.
“We will play quick, exciting football and rarely will you see us taking our foot off the pedal. We’ll be going for it big time.
“We have to live with 2022 but we will win a lot more games of football (this year). We’ll set out to win every game. We might not win every game but we’ll set out to do our best to win every game.”
After a long, hard pre-season, Port Adelaide’s players will play the first of three pre-season games on Friday 17 February with the squad to be divided for an intraclub match open to members at Alberton Oval.
Hinkley said as it stood, all players except the injured Jeremy Finlayson (ankle) and Ollie Lord (kidney) would be involved, although it was likely Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines may not feature until the club’s hit-outs against West Coast and Fremantle in Perth in the following fortnight.
“We’re pretty healthy,” the coach said. “Ollie (Wines) is the one who hasn’t done as much footy training as he’d like coming off pretty significant knee surgery but he’s back into full training as of next week so he’ll be ready to go (soon).
“At this time of the year you hope the list is in good shape but the nature of football is that injuries can impact. Everything being equal I think we’ll play with all bar two or three players.
“We’re really mindful that the start of the season is critical… so we need to make sure we get everything right.
“We’ll travel to Perth to play against the two West Australian sides and get the opportunity to fine-tune and be ready to go in Round 1 against a very strong opposition in Brisbane.
“It’s a pretty significant week or eight days we’ll be there (in Perth) where we’ll need to get things in the shape that we really want them.”
Port Adelaide’s intraclub match gets underway from 5pm on Friday 17 February with gates at Alberton Oval opening at 4pm.
Members can register for tickets for $5 per adult with free entry with a registration for children.
All ticket proceeds will be donated to club charity partners Variety SA and Foodbank.
