NEWLY APPOINTED Director of Coaching Alan Richardson says he is ready to embrace the next step in his career and help guide Port Adelaide’s coaching panel toward a new future at Alberton.
Richardson joins the Power in 2013 from Carlton where he was previously a senior assistant coach to Brett Ratten.
His pedigree as a strong developer of footballers extends across the Victorian AFL landscape where he has impacted player development at Collingwood, Essendon and the Western Bulldogs.
He will work closely with the club’s entire coaching panel at every level of football competition the club is involved in.
[ Related: Hinkley leads new-look coaching panel ]
“I know that there’s significant expectations to do a good job but I think through my experience playing not too dissimilar a role last year with supporting Brett Ratten as the senior assistant coach probably means that I can play that role (Coaching Director),” said Richardson.
Having sat down in Port Adelaide’s football department for the first time this week, Richardson is excited about his new role at Alberton.
“Really looking forward to moving on at this stage in my footy life and while I still will be fairly involved from a coaching perspective (I am) very much looking forward to working with the coaches,” he said.
Richardson’s role will also see him closely work with the club’s SANFL operations in a further strengthening of the ‘One Club’ reunification process that started at the end of 2010.
But it is in helping develop Port’s coaching resources to build a strong on-field list that Richardson is most looking forward to.
[ Related: Alan Richardson profile ]
Viewing the club’s rebuild as one of immense potential and prophesising a number of exciting players to come out of Alberton in the future, Richardson will help to sell the football vision of senior coach Ken Hinkley to the players and the Port Adelaide supporter base.
“Primarily to support Ken and the other coaches to make sure we can be really consistent with our messaging to the playing group,” said Richardson of his role.
“[To make sure] whatever change we make from a game plan perspective - obviously talking about the initial stages -we transfer that to initially to the way we approach our training, to our training and then obviously to game day.”
Richardson was announced with Hinkley and new high performance manager Darren Burgess at a press conference on Monday. You can view footage of the press conference here: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3.
