Port Adelaide defender Darcy Byrne-Jones says the Power is not surprised by finals revival
PORT Adelaide defender Darcy Byrne-Jones says the club has not been surprised at its rise up the ladder this season.
PORT Adelaide defender Darcy Byrne-Jones says the Power’s revival this season comes down to an unshakeable confidence in the club’s systems.
After two years outside of the finals, coach Ken Hinkley has not only avoided being under the spotlight to save his job but also surprised the football world with a few positional changes and — more importantly — making the finals.
But Byrne-Jones said the real reason for the Power making the finals and now being a contender was about the belief that had been built up despite some setbacks in 2016 and 2015.
“Obviously the last two years didn’t go as planned, but the way we bounced back this year has been really positive,” Byrne-Jones told The Advertiser.
“A lot of people in the footy world probably didn’t expect us to sit fifth (heading into the finals).
“I remember reading an article before the season started and about 80 per cent of the experts had us finishing bottom three.
“So I think we’ve surprised a lot of people but we haven’t surprised ourselves.
“The whole club has a lot of confidence in the whole system we’ve got in place.
“But also slowly during the pre-season you start to get a feel for how it’s going and this year it was really positive.”
Byrne-Jones’ comments come as the club has set to keep training as similar as possible this week despite the hype of finals starting.
Hamish Hartlett said it was particularly important not to have the younger players — who have not yet experienced September — waste too much nervous energy in the build up to the club’s elimination final against West Coast at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night.
“It’s more along the lines of keeping things as they have been,” Hartlett said on TripleM on Wednesday morning.
“We’ve played some pretty good footy throughout the year to enable ourselves to get this opportunity.
“So we’ll keep things as similar as we possibly can.
“I know there’s already some young boys with nerves floating around at the footy club so we don’t want to rile them up too much or get them too pumped and excited early in the week.
“We’ll keep rolling the way we normally have been.”