Impey incident worrying bump on road to redemption for Port
FOR a club that started pre-season training with the words ‘what did we learn’ written on the scoreboard, what happened on the weekend was not a good look for Port Adelaide, says Reece Homfray.
FOR a club that started pre-season training with the words ‘what did we learn’ written on the scoreboard, what happened on the weekend was not a good look for Port Adelaide.
Angus Monfries’ pool party and Jarman Impey’s alleged hit-run car crash certainly won’t appease supporters who have high expectations that the players will make amends for denying them finals footy for the second straight season.
The players aren’t robots — they’re entitled to have a beer and there’s no alcohol ban at Alberton so they haven’t broken any team rules in the off-season.
But really this isn’t the off-season anymore. This is the pre-season, this is December.
This isn’t even its Christmas break.
The players had 10 weeks to let their hair down, go overseas, party, whatever, before returning to work to right the wrongs of 2015 and 2016 rolled in together.
Power chief executive Keith Thomas on Sunday said he had no problem with the players drinking around the pool at Monfries place, after training six days a week.
What we don’t know is whether they had one beer or 10. But what may well have been an innocent beer around the pool certainly didn’t end well.
The group at Monfries’ place shouldn’t reflect the wider playing group, with Thomas saying it was only three or four players at the weekend “event”.
But it’s amazing how the actions of a few can paint a perception of a mindset at a club whether fair or not.
It’s time for Port Adelaide’s players to pull their socks up.
People’s jobs could be on the line next year, not least of all Monfries’ who has just had 12 months out of the game after serving his WADA ban and must fight to get his spot back.
Now neighbours are telling the media his is a party house and they’ve had to get double glazed windows to keep out the noise.
Whether that’s true or not, what sort of message is it sending to supporters?
The other concerning issue from the weekend is how Impey found himself in that situation and then went missing for up to five hours while in the company of his teammates. Don’t worry, Port Adelaide officials will be asking that question.
After the two years Port Adelaide has had — it has gone from preliminary finalist to missing the finals altogether, finishing 9th and 10th, the heat is on.
Surely the Power should be doing everything possible to make sure that doesn’t happen again. In December shouldn’t that mean training hard and recovering properly?
In a documentary of Port Adelaide’s 2016 season released in September, Thomas stood before the playing group after the final game and asked them to consider whether they were meeting the list of non-negotiables and high standards the club expected of them.
“If not, it does not mean you are bad people. But it does mean you will be unsuccessful,” Thomas says.
Those words take on even greater meaning now and perhaps it’s time some of the players ask themselves that again.
reece.homfray@news.com.au
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