Port Adelaide news 2023: The themes driving the Power through September

What do a hip hop hit, a movie about an atomic bomb and a team of basketball superstars have in common? Port Adelaide has used them as finals inspiration.

Ollie Wines with Travis Boak and Willem Drew. Picture: Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

It is Oppenheimer this September.

This year, Port Adelaide is the Redeem Team.

For the Power’s 2004 premiership campaign, a theme emerged on day one of pre-season when coach Mark Williams played Eminem’s Lose Yourself to his squad in a theatre room.

The song’s lyrics – including “the moment, you own it, you better never let it go, you only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime” – struck a note with a Power team intent on finally turning minor-round success into a flag.

“We just knew it was probably our last chance,” Port Adelaide premiership ruckman Dean Brogan recalled to this masthead.

“I remember Choco said, ‘More than likely this is it. If we don’t get it done this year it’s going to be really hard’, because the age of our list was pretty old.

“(The song) just set the tone.”

Motivational themes are nothing new in Aussie rules football.

One of the most famous was Brisbane coach Leigh Matthews adapting an Arnold Schwarzenegger line from the 1987 movie Predator – “If it bleeds we can kill it and we reckon Essendon can bleed” – ahead of a round 10 Gabba clash against the reigning premier in 2001.

Teamwork themes from the movie Oppenheimer is inspiring Port Adelaide these finals.

Essendon went into the match on top of the ladder having won 32 of its past 34 games, while the Lions were ninth with a 4-5 record.

The underdogs prevailed by 28 points, inspiring Brisbane on a path that culminated the next three premierships and another flag decider in 2004.

Almost 20 years on, Port Adelaide will head to the Gabba drawing inspiration from another blockbuster movie, Oppenheimer, the club’s finals theme.

The film is centred on the development of the atomic bomb but the Power has been tapping into the teamwork involved in creating something significant after years of hard work.

Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer led the design of the first atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II from 1942-45.

Port has been working towards a breakthrough premiership under coach Ken Hinkley – and the club’s first since 2004 – after qualifying in the top four for the third time in four seasons.

“This time of year coaches and playing groups try to go with a theme and try to bring something else to the table because it’s been a long year,” Brogan said.

“It doesn’t surprise me that they’ve gone down this path to all buy in.

“The new season starts now and it’s pretty irrelevant what you did in the last four or five months.”

Port Adelaide is preparing for a qualifying final against Brisbane. Picture: Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Power vice-captain Ollie Wines told SEN: “It’s a little bit about just how much work goes into something. In the movie Oppenheimer, it was (the work) to go into the atomic bomb that ended World War II.

“So many people have to come together and work hard for a number of years.

“This finals campaign isn’t something that’s just been building for this year, it’s probably been the last four years where we have reached two (preliminary) finals, we’re continuing to grow.”

Falling at that hurdle in consecutive seasons is one of the similarities between the present-day Power and the flag-winning 2004 contingent.

Hinkley’s side lost preliminary finals in 2020 and 2021.

Williams’s team did so in 2002 and 2003.

The early 2000s squad went from losing preliminary finals to a premiership, whereas the modern Power missed the finals, finishing 11th.

“It was a massive reset at the end of last year,” Brogan said.

“It was the last roll of the dice for Kenny and potentially some of that playing group.”

The slide from flag contender to also-ran prompted Port Adelaide chairman David Koch to challenge the Power players at their best-and-fairest in December, inspired by an Olympic basketball theme.

He called Port’s 2023 squad the Redeem Team – a name given to the gold medal-winning 2008 US side featuring superstars such as LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade.

James, Bryant and co. led the Americans to Olympic atonement in Beijing, four years after the country collected a shock bronze in Athens.

The Redeem Team featuring Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony.

“In my mind 2023 is a year of redemption from the disappointment of last season,” Koch said.

“We are the Redeem Team and I can’t wait to see who stands up and makes their mark on 2023.

“Who will step up and become the LeBron or Kobe of this group of players as we redeem in 2023?”

In a bizarre coincidence, Port Adelaide’s qualifying final opponent has also made the Redeem Team a theme this year.

Brisbane coach Chris Fagan made his squad watch a documentary on the 2008 US gold medallists during pre-season, highlighting how the Americans’ best players made defence a massive focus.

“It’s been a bit of a theme of ours during the year – if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us,” Fagan said earlier this season.

Similar to 2004, Brisbane is again standing in the way of the Power’s premiership pursuit, though not as a juggernaut coming off three flags in a row.

These Lions have not been able to get over the preliminary final hump, finishing fifth, fourth, fifth and fourth the past four years.

“They’re in a very similar situation to Port Adelaide,” Brogan said.

“They’re two teams that haven’t lived up to expectations the last few finals series so there’s a lot of pressure on both clubs.”

The Oppenheimer theme opens up plenty of possibilities for media outlets and headline writers this month, particularly if the Power “bombs out” of the finals in straight-sets.

Dean Brogan (left) after playing in Port’s 2004 premiership.

Port taking inspiration from the movie has already raised plenty of eyebrows on social media.

While their detonation led to the end of World War II, two atomic bombs built as part of the Manhattan Project killed more than 100,000 people after being dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Wines said the club’s finals theme had nothing to do with blowing away the opposition.

“I guess the general grasp of it is so many people have to come together and work hard to reach a common goal, which hopefully for us is a premiership,” he said.

Brogan said the Power were better placed for a flag tilt now than in 2020 or 2021 because of their finals experiences and star-studded midfield.

Port Adelaide’s age profile should give it the platform to contend for premierships for several more years, unlike at the end of 2004 when the club made the finals just twice more in the next eight seasons.

But Brogan said Hinkley would be imploring his side not to wait.

Like Eminem sang: “This opportunity comes once in a lifetime”.

“The core is there for a very successful three, four or five years,” Brogan said.

“But you just never know, footy is such a brutal game.

“A couple of injuries and you don’t make the eight next year.

“Now is as good a time as any to go and win the thing.”

Wines opens up on Port’s Oppenheimer connection

Port Adelaide is taking September inspiration from a blockbuster movie centred on the development of the atomic bomb.

As the Power prepares to face Brisbane at the Gabba on Saturday night, the club has made Oppenheimer its finals theme, focusing specifically on the teamwork involved in creating something significant after years of hard work.

Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer led the design of the first atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II from 1942-45.

Ollie Wines says the Power players have drawn inspiration from the smash-hit movie, Oppenheimer. Picture: Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Port has been working towards a breakthrough premiership under coach Ken Hinkley – and first for the club since 2004 – after qualifying in the top four for the third time in four seasons.

In explaining how the theme was being applied at Alberton, Power vice-captain Ollie Wines told SEN: “It’s a little bit about just how much work goes into something. In the movie Oppenheimer, it was (the work) to go into the atomic bomb that ended World War II”.

“So many people have to come together and work hard for a number of years.

“This finals campaign isn’t something that’s just been building for this year, it’s probably been the last four years where we have reached two (preliminary) finals, we’re continuing to grow.”

But the Power’s Oppenheimer inspiration has raised eyebrows on social media.

While their detonation led to the end of World War II, two atomic bombs built as part of the Manhattan Project killed more than 100,000 people after being dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Florence Pugh and Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer.

Wines said players had watched the film individually but the entire squad had not seen it.

He said the theme had nothing to do with blowing away the opposition.

“Funnily enough it’s not – you would think with that theme it is – it’s more so about the journey to get there and what it takes to produce that finished product,” he said.

“I guess the general grasp of it is so many people have to come together and work hard to reach a common goal, which hopefully for us is a premiership.”

Oppenheimer, starring Cillian Murphy in the lead role, has been one of the year’s highest-grossing films.

Originally published as Port Adelaide news 2023: The themes driving the Power through September