PORT ADELAIDE head coach Lauren Arnell has become well and truly immersed into the culture of her new club since her official commencement in early May.

Just shy of three months in the role, Arnell has attacked the hearty task of selecting six assistant and player development coaches and recruiting 30 exceptional players.

Speaking with Kymbo and The Rooch on SEN SA on Tuesday, Arnell discussed how her squad is shaping up.

“For us, we’ve got a couple of practice games coming up through August before round one which will give us a more accurate measure (of where we’re at),” she said.

“We’ve got Hannah Dunn who is the previous captain of the Gold Coast SUNS and Gemma Houghton out of Freo – those girls who have played a lot of AFLW and have been in different AFLW environments, you’re sort of almost trying to compare yourself to the list they have come from and ask them what their feel is.

“It gives you a level of optimism, but I mean, if you’re not going well in pre-season, you’re doing a fair bit wrong aren’t you! You’d like to think everyone is going well at this point in the year.”

The former Brisbane Lions Premiership player reflected on the last few weeks and the preparation behind building a program from the ground-up.

“It certainly has flown…it’s been three months (since I was appointed),” she said.

“I feel like we’ve probably fit a year into three months here at Port Adelaide. It’s been an incredible time and things are building and we’re really not too far off round one.”

The opportunity to add a women’s team to the historic club is not lost on Arnell who, upon her appointment, became the first former AFLW player to transition to senior coach.

“It certainly does feel like a football team now. The football club has over 150 years of tradition and we’re adding an AFLW team into that so there’s a fair bit that goes on behind the scenes.

“The beauty of working at Alberton every day is that I’m fully immersed in it all and you’re meeting all the people that work at the club but somewhat more importantly, you’re meeting the members and supporters that are just ingrained…they’re just Port Adelaide people.

“My personality certainly fits really nicely with how authentic, hardworking and genuine the people are here at Port Adelaide and I love it.”

Arnell also gave some context around the first match for the Power women being an away game in Perth.

“If you pop down (to Alberton), you’ll find out there’s huge amounts of amazing work happening in our grandstand to bring the benches up to, what they refer to as, AFL standard,” she said.

“You’ve got to have certain things in place to allow for broadcast, both radio and TV, and the coaching boxes need a slight upgrade as well, so that’s really the main reason round one is away.”

While discussing the recent reveal of her players’ guernsey numbers, Arnell was asked the one question on everyone’s lips: who will wear the famous number 1?

“I would love to give you that world exclusive,” she said.

“But unfortunately, I haven’t got that news just yet. That’s obviously still to come.”