Port Adelaide co-captain Tom Jonas expected to miss Pies clash, but will travel with team for Travis Boak’s 250th game

Port Adelaide captain Tom Jonas will miss Friday night’s clash with Collingwood, and vice-captain Hamish Hartlett is continuing to battle hamstring issues. Hear the latest edition of the Lowdown Podcast here.

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PORT Adelaide captain Tom Jonas will miss Friday night’s clash with Collingwood but still plans to travel to Melbourne with the team for Travis Boak’s 250th game.

Jonas hurt his calf at training last Wednesday and was ruled out of Friday’s win over North Melbourne and the club is taking a no-risk approach with him this week.

Speaking on The Advertiser’s new footy podcast The Lowdown on Tuesday morning, Jonas said he was a less than 50/50 chance of facing the Magpies at Docklands and the club later officially ruled him out.

Tom Jonas trains at Adelaide Oval last week just before hurting his calf. Picture: Kelly Barnes (AAP).

In other injury news at Alberton, Hamish Hartlett is now at least four weeks away from returning to football again as he deals with hamstring soreness linked to the graft on his ACL surgery last year.

“I did the presser straight after I had a slight calf strain at training (last Thursday) so at that stage I wasn’t too sure, I was pretty buoyant about still being right for Friday (against the Kangaroos),” Jonas said.

“But we had a scan on the Friday and it showed a little bit of damage so sat out, and this week is probably unlikely given we have the Showdown in a fortnight so I want to be right for that one.”

“Usually you’ve got something going on whether it’s tightness or whatever, and I had a bit of a sore calf so was keeping an eye on it, and went to chase someone and it got a bit worse so I went off to get it checked out.

“I’ve only done one (calf) before and they’re always tough to work out whether it’s tight or you’ve done a bit of damage, so it’s best to err on the side of caution.”

But Jonas paid tribute to Boak and said he would still love to be in Melbourne for his milestone game.

“Being Boaky’s 250th it would be great to be over there and support him and support the boys,” Jonas said.

“Incredible effort, he stuck by the club when we were at our darkest moment and really led us out of what was a terrible time with the J-Mac (John McCarthy’s death in 2012) stuff which for a lot of boys was the most challenging time in their lives.

Travis Boak thanks fans after the win against North Melbourne. Picture: AAP Image/David Mariuz

“The way he’s gone about his footy and been a man for others, as selfless as you can find and doing everything on and off the field to be the best he can be is huge testament to him.

“I hope the boys can do it for him, I’m disappointed I probably won’t be out there.”

As for headlines this week that Boak is a Brownlow Medal smoky, Jonas said don’t rule it out.

“He polls well, in the years when Robbie was a hot favourite Boaky was cleaning him up,” he said.

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