Port Adelaide 2023: Travis Boak, Jeremy Finlayson to miss season opener against Brisbane Lions
Port Adelaide will kick off its season without its spiritual leader but the return of an exciting goal sneak will help smooth over the pain when it takes on the Brisbane Lions.
Port Adelaide
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Port Adelaide star Travis Boak will miss the Power’s blockbuster season opener against Brisbane while Jeremy Finlayson will also sit out.
Boak suffered a heavy collision from Jeremy McGovern in the Power’s pre-season clash against West Coast in Perth.
After experiencing ongoing symptoms from the collision, the Power star underwent follow-up imaging that has confirmed a rib fracture.
The 34-year-old also sustained a lung contusion from the incident and the Power have sat him out of the tough start to the season against the Lions at Adelaide Oval to progress his recovery.
Despite training this week Finlayson has also failed to secure a spot in the Power side to take on the Lions on Saturday.
The forward/ruck had surgery to repair a syndesmosis injury last month which put him in a race against time to play in Round 1.
It means Scott Lycett will handle the ruck load against the Lions in his first game back at AFL level since Round 4 last year, in which he suffered a dislocated shoulder.
New recruits Jason Horne-Francis and Junior Rioli will make their debuts for the Power while Orazio Fantasia will taste his first AFL minutes since 2021 after his injury plagued 2022.
Fantasia said it was a relief to have his body right again.
“It has been a challenging 18 months for me personally,” he said.
“So to be able to have a full pre-season and be in the running for Round 1 is really exciting.”
Fantasia has been hit hard by injury during his career at both the Power and former club Essendon.
He said he was confident he was in the right space to play a lot in 2023.
“It all comes back to the pre-season and the work you do,” he said.
“When I first came to the club (the Power) I had a full pre-season and I was able to play those eight games early and was feeling really confident and then I got hurt and it was a bit of a challenge.
“But once again I know it is cliche but I have done the work this pre-season which puts me in really good stead to go.”
Fantasia comes into Round 1 off the back of playing in both the Power’s pre-season matches in Perth.
He said that was pleasing.
“It was actually just good to be out there and play footy again,” he said.
“It has been a while so I just went out there and had some fun.”
The livewire small forward said he added pilates to his routine to try and get on top of his injury issues, as well as being smarter around his training.
He said the injury issues last year left him “drained”.
“I would be the first to admit it,” he said.
“I was a pretty average partner and pretty average son at home.
“Just because it was challenging and I was pretty down on myself because I wanted to play.
“But after putting in the work I just want to get out there and have fun again.”
Race to get Adelaide Oval ready after Sheeran gig
- Lauren Wood
Australia’s leading sports turf specialists have moved to assure footy fans that Adelaide Oval will be more than ready for this weekend’s Round 1 clash, dispelling suggestions player safety could be in jeopardy.
A convoy of more than 20 trucks has been shuttling tonnes of turf between country Victoria and Adelaide Oval in a bid to have the ground ready for Saturday night’s season opener at the stadium.
Port Adelaide had planned to hold its weekly captain’s run at the ground but has moved the session to its Alberton base in the wake of the turf repairs that have followed the recent blockbuster Ed Sheeran concert at the ground, with a large section of the turf still being worked on on Wednesday afternoon just three days out from their clash with Brisbane on Saturday night.
Large sections of the MCG have already been replaced in recent days.
HG Turf in Alexandra, in northeast Victoria – which is the go-to turf supplier for top Australian stadiums including the MCG, Optus Stadium and the Adelaide Oval – has been ferrying slabs of grass to the City of Churches where large sections of Adelaide Oval’s surface was ripped up in the wake of the British singer-songwriter’s recent gig.
Some 22 refrigerated trucks have been part of the project.
The majority of the ground has been ripped up and replaced in a meticulous specialist operation that has been more than 12 months in the planning.
“We basically harvest the turf at night when it’s cooler, it goes in a refrigerated transport truck, it’s harvested here, loaded on, it’s at Adelaide Oval within 12 hours and laid within 24 hours, which is the criteria that we look to achieve,” a HG Turf representative told News Corp on Wednesday.
The turf system supplied, known as HERO Hybrid, uses a unique knitted system to anchor fresh grass to a synthetic system.
“We top it up with sand to a depth of 45 to 50mm of thickness, and then we grow the natural grass … that gives it its reinforcement and its strength,” the spokesperson said.
The grass is then harvested in 12 metres rolls that are just over a metre wide.
HG Turf said each roll of turf weighed over 1000 kilograms, meaning turf shifting was an unrealistic prospect.
“They’re impossible to move,” the representative said.
“It takes specialist turf-laying equipment to even pick them up and roll them out.
“When we start in a stadium, we remove all the dead stuff which is done with specialist machinery as well, and then we laser-level the surface to get it like a billiard table – perfect. And then we start the installation of the turf.
“When we do one roll of turf, we lay it out and then we push it really tightly with another specialist pushing machine. The rolls of turf are very heavy, but they’re rolled out and pushed really tightly together – almost to create this seamless join, effectively.
“That’s another key point – about (people saying) ‘the seams won’t be ready, the turf needs time to bed in’. It doesn’t. We do this year-in, year-out.
“It’s ready to play as soon as it is laid.”
An Adelaide Oval spokesman told News Corp on Wednesday that all was tracking nicely. “Head curator Damian Hough and the team have been thrilled with the quality of the turf that’s been arriving over the past few days and how it’s rolling out,” the stadium management authority spokesperson said.
“Everything remains on track ahead of Saturday evening’s game.”
POWER POISED FOR ROUND 1 SELECTION BOOST
Simeon Thomas-Wilson
Port Adelaide is all but certain to have Jeremy Finlayson available for its tough season opener against Brisbane.
Finlayson has returned to full training ahead of the clash against the Lions at Adelaide Oval on Saturday.
He had to have surgery on a syndesmosis injury last month which had him racing against time for Round 1.
But the forward, who played in the ruck with Scott Lycett out last year, moved well during training at Alberton on Tuesday.
“He is moving really well,” Power wingman Miles Bergman said.
“It is good to have everyone out on the track.
“We have no injuries anymore and everyone was out there so it’s great to see.”
Finlayson returning to contention for selection does give the Power a decision to make as to whether it can play him along with Charlie Dixon, Todd Marshall, Mitch Georgiades and a ruckman against Brisbane.
Scott Lycett has been the number one ruck option in the Power’s games out west against West Coast and Fremantle after Brynn Teakle started their internal trial as the ruck on the stronger side.
Trent Dumont (calf), Jackson Mead (hamstring) and Josh Sinn (hamstring) have also returned to full training.
Bergman himself has put a 2022 hit by injury and illness well and truly behind him with a wing spot all but locked in following Karl Amon’s move to Hawthorn.
Bergman had a shoulder reconstruction and then it got infected, so he had to go under the knife again.
He began his season in Round 4 against Melbourne but then had to deal with illness which meant he was out of the team from Round 5 to Round 16.
The 21-year-old said he learnt plenty from his 2022.
“Just the resilience that I had to get through that,” he said.
“I just stayed positive and kept connected to the club and got back and being confident in being able to push myself and play the last eight to 10 games whatever it was which I was pretty proud of.”
Bergman returned to pre-season with some more size on his 1.89m frame, leading to Ken Hinkley to give him the nickname of “Hulk”.
At just 21 and with 33 games under his belt he said he wanted to become a leader for the Power on a wing.
“A little bit was from coaches as well, knowing that the wing is a bit of a hard spot to learn and we have a pretty young list that go through the wing as well,” he said.
“So me and Xavier (Duursma) for example are trying to teach as many people as we can about the wing and we see the stoppage on game day so we try and talk to those mids and tell them what we see and help them.
“So building your voice in pre-season and getting that confidence in feeling a bit more involved (has been big).”
The Power have a tough start to the season with Collingwood at the MCG, Adelaide in the Showdown, Sydney at the SCG and the Western Bulldogs at home following the clash against the Lions on Saturday.
Bergman said he was looking forward to it.
“I think it is a good start because it will show where we are at,” he said.
“Having that challenge straight up sets us a great challenge ahead of the year.”
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