Coaching panel vital to Port Adelaide’s success so far in 2020 as other club’s struggle through pandemic
Port Adelaide made a brave call after the COVID-19 AFL shutdown finished in June, and the move is paying off now for the current ladder-leaders. Here what it did did differently.
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In March when the AFL season was postponed it created carnage for club staff across the whole of the AFL with dozens of coaches stood down.
Upon the resumption of the season in June, the AFL announced that the soft cap of $9.7 million that funds all football-related expenditure was to be slashed to $6.2 million.
The announcement was catastrophic for assistant coaches across the competition as multiple positions at most clubs were instantly made redundant.
Rather than copy what the rest of the competition was doing by shedding jobs, Port Adelaide had a different strategy.
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Head of football Chris Davies was determined to keep his coaching group together.
“With 45 players on our list, we made a conscious decision to bring as many coaches back as we could in order to make sure our players continue to develop,” he told The Advertiser.
That decision and the willingness of the coaching group to accept significant pay cuts is vital to why the Power has been the most consistent side this season and the ladder leader after nine rounds.
All of Port Adelaide’s coaches are strong personalities who bring different strengths and unique styles. It is a credit to senior coach Ken Hinkley who has given each individual a strong voice and ownership of their own area. Hinkley ultimately makes the final decisions, but it’s always in consultation with the panel that he trusts.
Port Adelaide has four coaches among its coaching group that are destined to be senior AFL coaches. The club possesses the most accomplished coaching panel in the AFL.
Nathan Bassett – the two-time Norwood premiership coach, has a brilliant football mind and is a great teacher who is an expert at simplifying complex football concepts for the players.
Bassett is in charge of the forwards and has a quirky nature, isn’t afraid to challenge Hinkley and is said to have a photographic memory when recalling certain statistics.
Jarrod Schofield was a key player in the Power’s premiership in 2004 before finishing his playing career at Fremantle.
His coaching journey began at Claremont in the WAFL and Schofield won three flags in six years as head coach of Subiaco.
His side also played in another two grand finals, and he will go down as the most successful coach in their history.
At the end of the 2018 season, Schofield was offered his first coaching role in the AFL, seeing him return to Alberton as the midfield coach.
Schofield’s strengths include his relationships with his players and his willingness to make brave calls on game day. On Monday he moved Travis Boak out of the midfield, injecting young gun Zak Butters into the engine room which was vital in swinging the momentum back in favour of the Power.
Defensive coach Brett Montgomery is one of the smartest minds in the AFL. The Port Adelaide premiership player returned to the club in 2018 after being an assistant coach and one of the architects of the Western Bulldogs breakthrough premiership in 2016.
The Power’s most significant improvement this year has been its full ground defence.
Opposition teams have had considerable difficulty moving the ball out of Port Adelaide’s forward line.
Montgomery instructs his players to guard the dangerous space on the ground rather than the traditional style of guarding an opponent.
This gives Port Adelaide the best opportunity to turn the ball over in its forward half, which leads to the most effective way of scoring in modern football.
Montgomery is described as intense, stubborn, super detailed in his preparation and driven to become a senior coach. Some inside Alberton think he is ready now to take the next step to become a senior coach.
Port Adelaide have had a faultless attitude in such a challenging season and Michael Voss, along with Hinkley, has been the key drivers of this.
He is in charge of the leadership program and has been instrumental in working on the connection of the playing group.
This season he has moved to the bench on game day to manage the highly stressful environment as players come on and off the ground.
Voss has already been exposed to senior coaching at Brisbane from 2009 to 2013, and he just missed out on the head coaching role at Carlton last year to David Teague.
Port Adelaide’s assistant coaching foursome is all destined for higher positions, but right now, they are the weapons driving the Power towards an unlikely premiership.
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Originally published as Coaching panel vital to Port Adelaide’s success so far in 2020 as other club’s struggle through pandemic
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