Port Adelaide’s Matt White proves fitness to front Sturt in SANFL grand final

PORT Adelaide will have Matthew White and Will Snelling in the line-up for the SANFL grand final battle against Sturt after the duo negotiated a fitness test.

Port Adelaide's Matthew White. Picture: Tom Huntley

PORT Adelaide has declared speedster Matthew White a definite starter in the SANFL grand final clash against Sturt at Adelaide Oval today.

White had been in doubt for the season finale after hurting his ankle in the opening quarter of the second semi-final victory over Woodville-West Torrens.

However, he successfully negotiated a fitness test on Friday and Port’s state team manager Shane Grimm said he will play, absolutely, when questioned on White’s status.

Will Snelling, troubled by a hand injury from the victory over the Eagles, also proved his health.

Port named a 23-man squad on Thursday and Grimm said coach Chad Cornes will still mulling over his options.

“White and Snelling have done everything they need to,” Grimm said. “We have still got the 23 and Chad is not 100 per cent sure (who will drop out) because the guys who came in last week played very well.

“He will wait until the last minute to decide who is out.”

Cornes again confirmed Todd Marshall, Riley Bonner, Jake Neade and Dougal Howard, who all played in the Power’s losing elimination final against West Coast, will front the Double Blues.

“From the outside looking in, the AFL players coming back to the SANFL may have some issues with it,” said Grimm, who was the Double Blues football manager last year when they won the flag.

“But the guys genuinely love playing for the Magpies. Even when they lost the AFL final, they wanted to know if they could come back to play the SANFL finals.”

The Double Blues will be without small forward Ben Hansen after he was ruled out yesterday morning due to a back injury, a legacy of the preliminary final win over the Eagles last weekend.

Double Blues coach Marty Mattner said Hansen had trained well on Friday, only to pull up sore yesterday.

Mark Evans is favoured to come into the line-up after being overlooked last week although teenager Mitch Crowden, a member of the Double Blues’ under 18 side which won the premiership last week, is being seriously considered.

“Mark Evans has been a consistent player all year, but Mitch Crowden played well in the under 18 grand final and has played that forward role really well,” Mattner said at the player presentation in the Rundle Mall on Saturday.

The Double Blues are also involved in the reserves grand final and Mattner has yet to decide if he will keep a player out of that game to be on standby for the league battle.