Port Adelaide’s Showdown display points to exciting times ahead
Port Adelaide’s demolition of the Crows indicates they have a team that could contend for a flag and will certainly excite on the journey.
Like musketeers, amigos and bad luck, Port Adelaide’s impressive crop of youngsters comes in threes.
Yes, like the fuse of Monty Python’s holy hand grenade, the number of the count shalt not be four (five is way out), but three, being: Connor Rozee, Xavier Duursma and Zak Butters.
The trio rightfully received more rave reviews after the Power’s 75-point humiliation of Adelaide on Saturday night.
But as good as they were, the three youngsters weren’t the story Saturday night.
The upshot — something that stamps the Power as a 2020 contender — was Port’s evenness.
Travis Boak was a worthy Showdown medallist, but he was right when he said it might have gone to “five or six others”.
Rozee, Duursma and Butters were among the others but so were Steven Motlop, Tom Rockliff and Darcy Byrne-Jones.
Before Saturday night, a Trent McKenzie word-association test would elicit responses about booming left boots, injuries and unfulfilled potential. Now the former Sun heads into the hub in his old borough as an established member of Port’s defence. Fellow backman Tom Clurey was resolute on Saturday night, up the other end Todd Marshall was slippery, and in the middle Brad Ebert epitomised Port’s determination.
Ebert invoked the spirit imbued in his name to set the tone, and the bandage on his head went well with the prison bars of his forefathers. Port’s improvement has been at the margins. Byrne-Jones has improved his kicking. Sam Powell-Pepper isn’t conceding as many free kicks. Karl Amon appears set to consolidate after a career-best 2019.
Distil all this and you have a Port unit that, if it doesn’t contend, will certainly excite.
And doesn’t Port’s Round 1 away win over Gold Coast look different now the Suns have beaten the Eagles?
The AFL’s first match with a crowd since the pandemic was a joy for Port and a misery for Adelaide. After Port’s lucky 1500 ticketholders finished singing the club song — which they did unaccompanied when the PA cut out — they launched into a Saturday night hit parade of records.
Port’s biggest Showdown margin. Adelaide’s lowest score in Adelaide. A stratospheric 290.6 percentage, the club’s best since joining the AFL (actually its best ever percentage, given the AFL uses the mathematically questionable formula of the former VFL).
And the Showdown ledger squared at 24-all. But that’s about the only thing the Adelaide clubs have in common. Port Adelaide 105 marks, Adelaide 39 marks. For pity’s sake, former Crows defender Nathan Bassett nearly took that many in a single game (22 in 2006).
How did it come to this? Well, this is where the Crows are at. A club that’s never countenanced a rebuilding phase has been forced to rebuild. Brick by bloody brick.
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