Alberton Oval was bursting at the seams on Friday evening as Port Adelaide put on a show for members and fans at the club's internal trial and family day.
Queen Street was transformed into a buzzing street party filled with food trucks, a petting zoo, a rock climbing wall, face painters and activities galore for kids and families, while on the field, a fierce battle between the black and white teams ensued for four 30-minute periods, with Josh Carr's new game plan on show to supporters for the first time.
The white team eventually claimed a five-point win in particularly tough, windy conditions, with Ollie Wines converting three beautiful set shots and small forward Benny Barrett kicking two in the first quarter.
Young key forwards Ollie Lord (two goals) and Jack Whitlock (three goals) both had some nice moments as the forward line competition continues to heat up ahead of Round 1, while Jordon Sweet and Dante Visentini felt evenly matched in the ruck.
Joe Berry was lively, slotting a neat running goal in the third, set up by Darcy Byrne-Jones, while Todd Marshall looked at home in his new backline role.
Late in the first term, Marshall switched the footy with a lovely lateral kick, setting up a strong end-to-end passage of play to get Barrett his second.
Third-year player Will Lorenz showed his pre-season growth, 19-year-old Christian Moraes got plenty of the footy and the quartet of train-on players pushed their case as the supplemental selection period deadline looms closer.
Mitch Zadow, Jaidyn Stephenson, Ted Clohesy and Balyn O'Brien all had nice moments, with Stephenson earning plenty of opportunity around goals. Zadow and O'Brien both set up majors for their respective teams, while Clohesy managed to slot a set shot from 50.
SANFL-listed players Nick Moore and recruit Harrison Elbrow both made an impact, as did new Magpies captain Jez McLennan.
"There were some great passages," coaching director Andy Collins said after the game.
"A really good strong black team around stoppages. The blacks had a strong score source from stoppage and the whites had a strong score source from turnover intercepts. We set the teams up very uniquely and just kept trialling things throughout the game.
"We had some moments that we'll review that were scrappy, but in those conditions…it made it a lot tougher. But at the same time, there were some really good ball movement passages, some really good challenging speed on the game, different modes of play, which is really positive for us too.
“We had some really different looks offensively. Defence is still a work in progress but that's also exciting for us.
"I really like the dynamics of (Joe) Richards, Berry…Darcy was really lively around forward 50 stoppages, so that half forward line is very dynamic. Then if you think about the keys - Whitlock, Lordy, (Jack) Lukosius. (Miles) Bergman looked really good inside, (Willem) Drewy was really solid, Ollie (Wines) became a goalkicker today.
"Match committee is going to be really interesting heading into our first game. We are in a really fortunate position where we do have some depth."
Rather than As versus Bs, the teams were evenly-split, however some key cogs were missing - Zak Butters and Mitch Georgiades were both in Perth preparing for AFL Origin, Kane Farrell was a late out with illness, and Corey Durdin was held back with a heel gash from Wednesday's training session.
Jason Horne-Francis served as the runner for the match, with the star midfielder managing a minor shoulder issue, however he is expected to be available for next week's match sim against Adelaide.
Port Adelaide will host the Crows at Alberton on Friday, 20 February in an official pre-season match simulation, before heading to Perth the following weekend for the AAMI Community Series game against West Coast.
Final score
Black team 10.15(75)
White team 12.8(80)
Goals
Wines, Whitlock 3, Barrett, Lord, Lukosius, Stephenson (train-on), Moore (SANFL), Elbrow (SANFL) 2, Byrne-Jones, Berry, Anastasopoulos, Clohesy (train-on).
