Six of the best Port Adelaide games in the 2019 AFL fixture
WITH the AFL’s 2019 fixture released, Sports Editor at Large, Michelangelo Rucci, has taken a look at Port Adelaide’s 2019 schedule and picked out six unmissable games.
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ROUND 4 v RICHMOND
Adelaide Oval, Saturday, April 13
IT is a mixed bag in a football context for Port Adelaide in the first month of the home-and-away fixture. Games against this year’s two losing preliminary finalists (Melbourne and Richmond) and two of the cellar-dwellers (Carlton and Brisbane). But it is this clash with the Tigers that will give the most meaningful early signal of where the Power stands in the race to September. A new-look Tiger attack with Tom Lynch and a new edge to the Power rucks with the Patrick Ryder-Scott Lycett combination. Fascinating, to say the least.
ROUND 5 v WEST COAST
Perth Stadium, Friday, April 19
WHAT a test for Port Adelaide - West Coast on its home deck while carrying the title of “AFL premier”, a full house of Eagles fans not objecting to top-class football on a religious holiday (Good Friday) ... and the ghosts of recent Power-Eagles matches in which West Coast has emerged as Port Adelaide’s greatest torment with after-the-siren goals from Luke Shuey and Jeremy McGovern in the past two games at Adelaide Oval. Lycett plays against his Eagles premiership team-mates for the first time.
ROUND 6 v NORTH MELBOURNE
Adelaide Oval, Friday, April 26
PORT Adelaide makes a strong call to AFL House to hold a commemorative match at Adelaide Oval in honour of the Anzacs and the Australian Defence Forces. This time, the Power gets the premier Friday Night Football timeslot to show all of Australia on free-to-air television just how significant the Anzac theme is to the club’s ethos. And there is the potential return of two former Port Adelaide heroes ... Jared Polec and Jasper Pittard.
ROUND 8 v ADELAIDE
Adelaide Oval, Saturday, May 11
SHOWDOWN 46 - and Port Adelaide gets the first of the classic derbies with the Crows in the timeslot the Power fans savour most: Saturday night at Adelaide Oval. By Round 8 the premiership table will have meaningful shape and the race to September’s top-eight berths will start to have definition - so this Showdown is perfectly placed. And after the last-minute drama from this year’s two derbies, there is the simplest sales pitch for Showdown 46 to square the ledger at 23-23.
ROUND 10 v HAWTHORN
Launceston, Saturday, May 25
CHAD Wingard has just one meeting with his former Power team-mates in next year’s home-and-away series - and it is well away from the passionate Adelaide Oval crowd that was devoted to the 2013 Port Adelaide club champion in his 147 matches - some as a game-breaker - across seven seasons with the Power. There has been “heat” in Port Adelaide-Hawthorn games for five years now, both home and away for the Power. This one gets a real edge with the Wingard factor.
ROUND 11 v ST KILDA
Shanghai China, Sunday, June 2
FOR the third consecutive season, Port Adelaide is on the international stage with a game at Adelaide Arena at Jaingwan Stadium in Shanghai, China. The opponent has changed, however. Gone is Gold Coast and the “China Strategy” gets a new focus with a Victorian-based club that can deliver greater attention at home, St Kilda. In theory, the Saints should be be dismissed with a “W” on the ladder ... but then that was said of dealing with Fremantle in Perth this year.