PORT ADELAIDE will play St Kilda in Shanghai in 2019 and for two years after that.
It’ll be the first time the Saints play in China but not the first time they have played overseas.
We’ve dug up this and some other interesting facts about the rivalry between the Power and Saints.
Long streaks
St Kilda had the wood over the Power for the first four years of the Adelaide club’s existence. The Saints won the first five meetings between the sides by an average of 49.8 points. All but one of those games was played in Melbourne at either Waverley Park or Docklands. The Power’s first win over St Kilda was a 64-point thrashing at Football Park in 2001.
That started a run of nine straight wins by the Power by an average of 35.6 points. The next best streak by either side is Port Adelaide’s current seven wins by an average of 30.4 points.
Previous games outside of SA and Vic
Port Adelaide has met St Kilda in four games at York Park in Tasmania. The Power won the first three by 42, 46 and 23 points before losing the last meeting in 2006 by four points.
Not many finals
The sides have met just once in the finals but what a game! The 2004 Preliminary Final has gone down as one of the most memorable games in the club’s history. The game saw Saint Fraser Gehrig boot five goals including his 100th of the season, leading to a pitch invasion by hundreds of spectators. The break in play turned the game and the Power fought its way back into the contest before it booked its place in the grand final, holding on for a six-point win.
Coach sharing
St Kilda coach Alan Richardson was Power coach Ken Hinkley’s senior assistant in 2013 with the pair coming to Alberton at the same time. Richardson coached his first game when Hinkley had a virus, a 10-point loss to North Melbourne in Round 6 in Hobart. At the end of 2013 he took the vacant St Kilda coaching job.
The Saints have also just parted ways with 2004 Power premiership player Adam Kingsley who was an assistant coach there for the last eight years. He’s been replaced by one of his premiership teammates Brendon Lade who was an assistant coach at the Power.
Plenty of birthdays
Port Adelaide and St Kilda are two of the oldest Australian rules football clubs. Port Adelaide was established in 1870 and will celebrate its 150-year milestone in 2020. The Saints aren’t far behind, having been founded in 1873.
Success?
Both Port Adelaide and St Kilda have won one premiership in the AFL (or the VFL when St Kilda won it in 1966) The Power’s historic premiership came in 2004, but Port Adelaide has also won 36 SANFL premierships making it the nation’s most successful club. The Power and Adelaide are the only AFL clubs yet to win the wooden spoon. Port has won three wooden spoons in South Australian footy but none since 1900. The Saints conversely have won more wooden spoons than any other existing AFL team with 27. Its latest one came in 2014.
Overseas success
Port Adelaide has a pretty good record when playing overseas with three wins from four games. It played post-season exhibition games at the Oval in London in 2006 against Geelong for a 21-point loss and against the Western Bulldogs in 2012 for a one-point win after being 39 points down in the third term and booting nine unanswered goals.
Of its two games for premiership points in Shanghai, the Power has beaten the Gold Coast by 72 points in 2017 and 40 points in 2018 so it would like its chances in 2019 against the Saints.
St Kilda’s overseas record is at best dismal. It lost post-season exhibition matches against the Western Bulldogs in 1998 at the Oval by 23 points and to Geelong in 1991 in Auckland by 13 points. It then signed up to play a game on ANZAC Day each year from 2013 to 2015 in Wellington in New Zealand, only to fall to Sydney (16 points), Brisbane (3 points) and Carlton (40 points).
It means the 2019 Shanghai game will give it a chance for its first win away from Australian soil.
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