Former captain, coach and ruckman Matthew Primus speaks to Port Adelaide at pre-season camp in Noosa
Once a Port Adelaide person, always a Port Adelaide person it seems as Matthew Primus yesterday returned to the club for the first time since his sacking as coach in 2012.
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Once a Port Adelaide person, always a Port Adelaide person it seems as Matthew Primus yesterday returned to the club for the first time since his sacking as coach in 2012.
Fourteen years after being denied a premiership as captain when he injured his knee and six years after he was sacked as coach which ended a torrid three years when the club was on its knees, Primus visited the Power’s pre-season training camp in Noosa and addressed the players and coaches.
Alongside 2004 premiership players Chad Cornes, Jarrad Schofield and Dean Brogan they spoke to the group for an hour about what Port Adelaide meant to them and urged the current team to climb their own mountain next year.
Nice story at Port Adelaide’s Noosa camp. Matthew Primus has turned up to address the playing group and coaches. First time he’s been back to the club environment since 2012. Lots of smiles for the big fella. pic.twitter.com/yjwpEMwnQk
— Reece Homfray (@reecehomfray) December 15, 2018
Primus said Ken Hinkley, Michael Voss and Cornes asked him to speak to the players and after finishing up with Gold Coast as an assistant coach this year he realised it was too good an opportunity to pass up.
“Some of the things I spoke about were dear to my heart,” Primus said.
“The club, what it means to you, leadership and those sorts of things. It was good to see some familiar faces but also the younger ones and tell them how much the club means to me.
“They’ve got a core group here but a lot of new faces the last two years and a big turnover of the list, so just the connection to the players and a bit about our history in the AFL.”
Primus sat alongside Cornes — the player he dropped to the SANFL in 2011 which essentially ended his time at Port Adelaide. A year later Primus was gone as well after a loss to GWS in Round 19, 2012.
But Primus said there were no old wounds from his coaching days and he was honoured to be asked back.
“That’s no problems at all, that’s the way footy goes and no issues at all, I am just really grateful for the opportunity to come back and hopefully the boys got something out of it,” he said.
“As I said to them they might have missed the eight last season but it’s very close between missing the eight and making top four and this group is not too far away, but they’ve got to be able to go again.”
Primus, 43, plans to stay on the Gold Coast next year and will work with Southport in the NEAFL.
“We love living up here but we’ll see where the next 12 months takes us,” he said.