AFLW: Inside Port Adelaide’s rise from bottom four to finals footy in 2024
Port looked a mile off their AFLW rivals when they slumped to a second consecutive bottom-four finish last year. The Power coach and one of their stars reveal how they’ve turned it all around.
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Last season teams were racing past Port Adelaide on the field as games went on while off the field it looked like the Power were miles behind many of its AFLW rivals.
But in the space of one year the Power have gone from a side that won just the two games in 2023, also drawing one, to playing in its first finals series in its third year in the competition on the back of a six-game winning run.
Amid calls for the AFL to conduct a training audit of clubs amid big discrepancies between the league’s superpowers and the battlers following blowouts in season nine the Power have been able to not only bridge the gap to some sides who had a six-year headstart but also fly past them.
This is how the Power rose from two bottom four finishes in a row to a finals place.
‘WE JUST COULDN’T PLAY OUT FOUR QUARTERS’
Port finished its 2023 season on a high, sending legend Erin Phillips out with a win over GWS at Alberton Oval.
But the celebrations for that were short lived as the Power put the blowtorch on the playing list.
Now departed head of AFLW Juliet Haslam told this masthead that it had become clear to the Power that in terms of its fitness “we aren’t where we need to be”.
Leadership group member Ange Foley said it was stark just how much this was hurting the Power.
“We just couldn’t play out four quarters last year,” she said.
“Some of that comes from experience, we are a very young group who haven’t had many pre-seasons behind them.
“So once you are able to get that going and you can put four quarters together fitness wise, skills and game plan come from that.”
Power AFLW coach Lauren Arnell said this was something that was an issue for the first two seasons.
“We knew it in the first two seasons and I think a lot of people forget that in the first season we had a seven week pre-season,” she said.
“When I first moved to Adelaide I think I had three weeks before pre-season started and no coaches.
“So you look at factors like that, building a list, we had no players signed at the time outside of Erin Phillips and so you are in a rush and a seven week pre-season is nowhere near enough for a list that had largely not played any AFLW footy if none.
“So you are just playing catch-up for a couple of years to be fair, so credit to our players and staff for putting the condition into the group in such a short space of time.
“And credit to the other expansion teams you see Essendon, Sydney and Hawthorn are all in a space now where they are legitimately competing over four quarters where last year this wasn’t a reality.”
At the end of last season Arnell and the other key figures in Port’s AFLW program put it on the Power players that they needed to get fitter.
So constantly there were groups of players doing sessions at Alberton Oval together.
“We knew it was an area we needed to focus on and it was definitely achievable in the off-season,” Foley said.
“So we had a big focus on that, it can be boring just running by yourself, so we had a fair crew down at Alberton plenty of times and had a real focus on that.
“And when we came into the official pre-season in shape we were able to hone in on our game style.”
teamwork makes the dream work 🫶 pic.twitter.com/1v2Jx35tq8
— Port Adelaide AFLW (@pafc_w) November 4, 2024
At this time Arnell had just given birth to daughter Marlie so was on maternity leave.
But she quickly realised that the penny was dropping.
“It was funny, I had my daughter in early Jan and you hear about it (the work they were doing),” she said.
“And they were coming and visiting me and they looked fitter, they were raving about how many sessions they have been doing.”
In addition to putting it on the players that they needed to be fitter, the Power also said it would increase the support around Arnell.
Former Brisbane defender Daniel Merrett joined as an AFLW assistant, and was full time at Alberton, while Anthony Gallomarino - who has significant experience in working with female athletes - came in as the high performance boss.
Quickly it became apparent that a corner had been turned fitness wise.
“All of our results from testing had improved,” head of AFLW Shane Grimm said.
“I know that’s a thing people joke about - that we are fitter and faster - but we genuinely were.
“Not all of them came from a really high base, there were some that needed to genuinely improve and a lot of them did.”
STRIKING GOLD
As part of being an expansion team, the Power were able to sign players from its academy as part of the under-18 talent pathway pre-signing period.
From this the Power selected Lauren Young, Molly Brooksby and Shineah Goody.
While Young, touted as one of the best young players to come out of South Australia having won the best and fairest in the SANFLW at just 15-years-old, suffered an ACL injury and was ruled out for the season Brooksby and Goody quickly became key players for the Power.
Piper Window and Alissa Brook were picked up in the draft, adding to the exciting young talent at Alberton.
“There has been a fair bit of talent that we have recruited, not just in the draft just gone but over the last couple of years,” Foley said.
But it wasn’t just stocking up on young guns.
Kristy Lamb, 30 and a premiership winner, joined from the Western Bulldogs.
“We added some really good talent and experience in Kristy Lamb,” Arnell said.
“Lamby had a couple of weeks out with concussion but she has really found her place on and off the field with the group in the last three weeks.
“So the young and exciting talent that everyone is talking about is making a difference, that middle tier of players who were here from day one and were 17 or 18 in our first draft have come a long way too.”
But it always helps when you can pluck one or two out of nowhere and that’s what the Power did.
Remarkably the Power have made finals without captain Janelle Cuthbertson, forward Indy Tahau and Young for basically all of this season because of ACL injuries - while inaugural best and fairest winner Hannah Ewings took extended personal leave from the group.
But the Power struck gold with injury replacement signings Teagan Germech and Caitlin Wendland, who have played every game in 2024 and recently signed three-year contracts to remain at Alberton.
“They are in our best 21 each week and are outstanding players,” Grimm said.
“So next year when we bring Indy and Lauren back onto the list we are still going to have Caitlin and Teagan so even without the draft or trading we are bringing in two extremely good players and keeping the two players who replaced them this year.
“So our list management led by Naomi Maidment in identifying those two players as injury replacement players, players who weren’t on a list in the first place, has been fantastic.”
‘OH WE ARE GETTING CLOSER’
It became apparent quickly that the Power had improved in 2024.
After going down in the first Showdown by 70-points, the Power then lost to fierce rivals Adelaide by 30 points last year.
In Round 1 of 2024 under lights at Alberton Oval the Power went down by 14-points against the most successful side of the competition.
“And we felt that if the game goes for another 10 minutes we are challenging them even further,” Arnell said.
Grimm said quickly there was belief among the playing group.
“While the girls came off disappointed they had lost they were thinking oh we are getting closer,” he said.
“And then we went and beat the Bulldogs (in Round 2).
“The North Melbourne game (Round 4) was a real eye opener because they are a really good side but we finished strong against them, Richmond (Round 5) was the same, they started well and we finished well.
“And then we started looking at our starts, what was going on we could finish games.
“We were testing well, we looked at the results from last year and we were testing well. We just needed to get mentally better with our starts.
“And once we started to do that we started winning games obviously but it was also because we started to get both our sides of our mental preparation and our physical preparation started to come into line.”
For Arnell a turning point came after going down to Fremantle by eight points at Alberton Oval in Round 3.
“We walked away from that and in the review I showed the players the list demographic of both teams that had played and the 21 that played against us from Fremantle they had no one under the age of 24,” she said.
“And we had 12 players that day that were 18 to 21. So when we started talking about those things and some elements of maturity about winning games that were tight that we had lost previously I think that was something that changed the narrative of our season.
“How ruthless do we need to be over each quarter and just adding some learning around having to manage games has been really good.
“Sometimes you need to lose to learn lessons.”
‘WE AREN’T GOING TO MAKE UP A NUMBER’
On Sunday the Power will take on the Tigers in an elimination final at Alberton.
Richmond have won the one and only fixture between the two, earlier this season.
But following the rise that has taken place across 2024, Foley said the Power would fear no side.
“There was a six year gap and we had to get things together pretty quickly and in three years we have been able to do that if I’m honest, which is a pretty big achievement,” she said.
“The talent that we have, we have always known that we have the talent there we just needed to gel together and I’m pretty glad as to how we have done that in three seasons.
“Even two years ago finals was a goal for every team, Port Adelaide exists to win premierships so it was something that we knew that we could do and now that we are here we aren’t going to make up a number in the eight.
“We have huge belief that we are able to compete over the next two weeks.”
Grimm and Arnell both say there is still work to do despite reaching finals.
“What I have noticed is that if anything this year we are fitter but when you look at the better teams or stronger teams like Brisbane, North and Adelaide they physically look stronger,” he said.
“So I think that is the next step for us, we have six teenagers playing most weeks plus a lot of 20 and 21-year-olds.
“So a few pre-seasons in the gym will help in that area, probably our next area of improvement is that physical strength to compete with the really top teams.”
Arnell said win or lose on Sunday, it was all about how the Power gets better.
“At the end of the day we are into our first finals and what this has been about and the heavy losses that we have taken over the first two years have been about building for sustainable success,” she said.
“So we don’t want to sit here and get excited about one finals series.
“Long term, however Sunday goes, the conversation will go to how we get better now and it won’t be pats on the back. It will be what is next to get better whether we have another opportunity the following week or we have to go into an off-season and plan for pre-season next year.
“It is how are we going to get better.”
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Originally published as AFLW: Inside Port Adelaide’s rise from bottom four to finals footy in 2024
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