Loyal Boak will lead Power: Tredrea

TRAVIS Boak will be Port Adelaide's next captain, perhaps as early as next year, writes Warren Tredrea.

Travis Boak

TRAVIS Boak will be Port Adelaide's next captain, perhaps as early as next year, after resisting the lure home to Victoria and staying with the club.

In the evolving game of contract cat-and-mouse, the Power has the runs on the board, re-signing young aces Robbie Gray and Hamish Hartlett this year.

The big fish still awaits. It is only a matter of time, however, before Boak puts pen to paper on a lucrative new deal.

Port's hometown rival the Crows signed their big fish on Monday, securing rising superstar Patrick Dangerfield for three years on a deal worth about $2 million.

Adelaide football manager Phil Harper deserves credit, but he had to get it done after losing Nathan Bock and Phil Davis to expansion clubs Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney.

When Dangerfield fronted the media on Monday he spoke of buying into life at West Lakes. This is why I am convinced Rory Sloane and Kurt Tippett will follow his lead and commit to the Crows. That leaves Boak as the big contract story from SA. Power football manager Peter Rohde is the man to get the deal done. He has a great track record of re-signing

key players. In the past

three years, Rohde has convinced Boak, Gray and Hartlett (twice), Jackson Trengove, John Butcher and Alipate Carlile to recommit to the club.

Having made good friendships and helped the club rise the AFL ladder, Boak will not walk out now.

A deal will have to wait until after Port's mid-season break. Port's reigning joint club champion, who plays his 100th game against Carlton on Saturday, will head home to his Victorian home town of Torquay to discuss his future with his mum, Chicki, and two sisters.

Boak is a first-class citizen whose character is built on loyalty, hard work and discipline. While the draw home to his family is there, his family - as with Dangerfield's - will not pressure him into returning home. Boak sees his future

at Alberton.

The team is showing improvement, having already won the same amount of games (three) in nine rounds as it did in the entire 2011 season. He is a dead-set certainty to be named Port's next skipper when current captain Dom Cassisi steps down from the role, possibly at the end of the season.

What many people also do not realise is how loyal Boak is to Power coach Matthew Primus. He would have taken the poor treatment and criticism of his coach from some sections of the media personally, such is their strong player-coach relationship.

Boak proved at the weekend why he is Port's best player. With his team facing a danger game against Gold Coast at Metricon, Boak produced a best-afield display with 28 disposals and three goals. After pledging his allegiance to Port in an article in The Advertiser

pre-season, publicly it

seems Boak has had a change of heart. In reality, nothing has changed.

Midway through last year's horror home-and-away season, a group of great mates (Power players) gathered for dinner. On the agenda was one topic - their futures. This was different from their usual catch-ups, as Primus was invited.

Trengove, Butcher and Carlile pledged their commitment to already-contracted mates, stressing

to Primus that they wanted to help rebuild this great club.

Premiership teams are

built on players sticking together. In 1999 we had a group of talented but unfulfilled players commit to life at Alberton, as Peter Burgoyne, Michael Wilson, Brendon Lade, Roger James, Stuart Dew and Chad Cornes signed on.

Five years later we were premiership players.