A majestic career ends. Farewell Robbie Gray. That is hard to say ... even harder to contemplate after year after year after year of entertainment from one of the game's greatest playmakers and gamewinners.
Another season closes. Good riddance to Season 2022 some might say. That is easier to utter, even though it carries the disappointment of Port Adelaide playing no part in next month's top-eight AFL finals series.
Emotionally, Showdown LII was a roller-coaster ride from the moment on Tuesday morning when Gray confirmed his retirement from AFL football.
There already was the empty feeling that the Showdown marks the end of Port Adelaide's football calendar in 2022. The chase for this season's AFL premiership falls to eight rivals after Saturday night.
And then so much more sinks in to make Showdown LII far more than a "dead rubber" between the 11th-ranked Port Adelaide (9-12) and the 14th-placed neighbour on the other side of old Port Road.
There is the reality that the 2022 Port Adelaide squad will need to change - and it will change through a highly anticipated trade period in October that could be as wild as the home-and-away season became. Gray is not the only player who will be unsighted at Alberton when the summer calls a new squad together for pre-season training.
Showdown LII also marks a significant moment in the one of the team leader's AFL journey. Deputy vice-captain Darcy Byrne-Jones reaches his 150-game AFL milestone.
And there is that matter of the Port Adelaide players releasing their inner feelings on the rivalry with the neighbour to the west - "arrogant and entitled," the leadership group has said in unison.
So many emotions. So many agenda items. So much at stake in a derby that stands as the most-intense in Australian football. Would anyone still say this a "dead rubber" Showdown?
"What is a sporting rivalry - it is just that a 'sporting' rivalry. The players' views on what we think of each other in this town is clear - and has been clear for a lot longer before me (arriving at Port Adelaide in October 2012) and will be after me as well.
"We enjoy the dislike of the Crows ...
"There is honesty in how our players talk. That is how they must feel (about the rivalry). And they have spoken that way. It is not manufactured. And we don't need to do that for Showdowns. Showdowns bring out these conversations - this is a Showdown."
- Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley
FINAL BOW
GAME No. 271. Showdown No. 22. One last run at Adelaide Oval. One last chance to marvel at a player who stands as a genius among so many mere mortals on the football field.
After 16 seasons, the player called from under the shadows of the Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne as the 55th player inducted to the AFL through the 2006 national draft takes his final bow.
Robbie Gray will leave the game as one of Port Adelaide's greatest players of any era. He exits the stage as one of the AFL's finest players of all eras.
Gray arrived at Alberton in the summer of 2006-7 as a teenager wondering if he would play one AFL game. He has survived a career-threatening knee injury in 2012. He leaves with many wishing he would play one more season.
There is a dream script for the man who has shone so often in Showdowns, winning five Showdown Medals - including both in Season 2018. The man with the record for most last scores in AFL football resulting in wins for his team would have the last shot on goal - and make his final act in the game be true to his image as "Mr Clutch".
"Just the win would be nice," says Gray.
"I can't wait to play in front of the fans one last time. They have given me and my family so much and been such great supporters of me personally. It is what the fans give to all of us as players that makes them amazing. I am looking forward to getting out there one last time and thanking them for their support."
- Robbie Gray
SELECTION
HOW do you change a winning team that has achieved its best score of the season and the equal-biggest win of the season?
Add Robbie Gray.
Convention continues to be challenged at selection, however.
The ruck duties remain with the successful makeshift pairing of key forwards Jeremy Finlayson and Charlie Dixon with half-forward Sam Powell-Pepper in support.
Finlayson has defied - and challenged - the concept of counting hit-outs to put a great emphasis on the follow-up work after the ruck contest.
Port Adelaide ruck coach Matthew Lobbe - like senior coach Ken Hinkley - has raised the eyebrows at Finlayson's work in ruck.
"With ball in hand, Jeremy's decision making is amazing," Lobbe said. "I've not seen any ruckman do as Jeremy has done as consistently. He is the genuine fourth midfielder for us.
"We definitely have a different model with Jeremy. Take last week, we lose the hit-outs by 40 and Jeremy is one of the best on ground."
The defence is built around two recognised tall back men - captain Tom Jonas and All-Australian Aliir Aliir. This leaves Ryan Burton and Dan Houston to work tall match-ups while also creating rebound from Port Adelaide's defence.
"Trent McKenzie has not been in his greatest form; Tom Clurey is unavailable (by knee surgery)," Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley explains. "We have had to play with two tall (defenders rather than three) for a long period of my journey here. It is not unusual for us - and we think it is the best opportunity for us to win the game."
"There is no such thing as a dead rubber when it comes to a Showdown. There is a huge amount of pride on the line.
"You never want to lose a Showdown. It is as simple as that."
- Port Adelaide captain Tom Jonas
STYLE COUNCIL
ADELAIDE acting captain Brodie Smith has worked the numbers.
"We looked at them ... (Port Adelaide) is a pretty good uncontested side," said Smith this week. "They get a lot of ball movement that we need to shut down.
"Obviously, our contest and pressure has been our one-wood, the key to our game and it gets us over the line. We definitely need to bring that early - and shut out their crowd early."
On contested possessions - the basis of Adelaide's so-called "DNA" - Smith's team has a 143.2 average this season. Port Adelaide is at 137.3.
On uncontested possession, Port Adelaide has a 237.5 average. Smith's group is at 206.9.
On a night when - as Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley says - "actions matter most", Port Adelaide has to deal with matching and defying a rival that has built its new gameplan on an uncompromising attitude towards the contest.
"(Adelaide coach and former Port Adelaide senior assistant coach) Matthew Nicks would know we are a contested football team. That is a reality," Hinkley responded. "Brodie is allowed his opinion."
For the record, the barometer did hold true in Showdown LI. The raw contested count went against Port Adelaide, 134-140. So did the uncontested numbers, 197-194.
So, will it be decisive again?
"(Smith) has his opinion, but we are a really solid, contested team - and uncontested, we have some weapons on the outside," Port Adelaide deputy vice-captain Byrne-Jones says. "He is probably referring to Connor Rozee and Zak Butters who are really good outside the contest. But we also think they are really tough on the inside as well.
"We are definitely able to stand up to the heat. We will find out on Saturday night, but we go in pretty confident with the way we can play contested footy on the inside and be tough on the outside as well.
"Adelaide does have some strong midfielders who run really well and out-number really well. They attack you with the ball and can come at you very quickly. So, we are going to need counter that by out-numbering them as much as possible and then use the footy well, limiting our turnovers going forward."
Port Adelaide ruck coach Matthew Lobbe details Adelaide's playbook as carrying pages on "outnumbering the opposition at contests".
"They get numbers there - and we have to get just as many if not more to the contest," Lobbe said. "We have to win the ball - and spread. It is a big task."
CURTAIN FALLS
FOR the fourth time since the Showdowns began in 1997, the home-and-away season ends with a derby. The last time was 2004 (a memorable year in Port Adelaide history). Port Adelaide has won all three Showdowns that have pulled down the curtain on the home-and-away season.
At best, Port Adelaide will finish the season at 10-12. It certainly will finish as the best-ranked South Australian AFL club for the fifth year in a row.
But the curtain falls on a year that began with a lead weight from a 0-5 start and without the finals action that underlines Port Adelaide's ambition.
The Showdown ledger would be at 27-25 in Port Adelaide's favour if Robbie Gray leaves Adelaide Oval on Saturday night with the public address system blaring "We Have The Power To Win".
"I don't like finishing the season now. If we can win a Showdown, it gives us something to go forward with to 2023. Not much. But something."
- Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley
HOW THIS ROLLS
REMOVE the 2020 Showdown (with Port Adelaide wearing the club's 1901 black-and-white bars to mark the club's 150th anniversary) that was played to shortened quarters with the COVID protocols and the form line reads:
Port Adelaide has won three of the past five derbies
Port Adelaide is the only team to break the watershed 100-point barrier in those five Showdowns - 101 points in the second derby of 2019
Port Adelaide has put up 27 (in the most recent Showdown), 20, 27, 26 and 23 scores in these five derbies; Adelaide has chalked up 21, 13, 10, 19 and 23. There is a trend.
Clearly, accuracy is telling - as Port Adelaide laments from its 4.7 (while conceding 8.3) during the second half of the April Fool's Day derby this season.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
"Our responsibility is to turn up and perform. Actions during the game matter the most. That is what we have to live by.
"We know the great history of the Showdown ... and nothing is taken for granted in Showdowns."
- Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"There obviously is some disappointment with how the season has panned out. I am sure at the start of the season no-one within the four walls here at Port Adelaide would have thought we would be missing finals (after top-four finishes in the previous two years). We were really confident going into the season. But things have not panned out the way we thought they would. That is the reality of it.
"We have to take learnings from it, review it really hard and then come back next season with a renewed vigour and a real want to play strong footy again."
- Port Adelaide deputy vice-captain Darcy Bryne-Jones
THE BIRD SEED
(the small details that count)
Showdown LII
Port Adelaide v Adelaide, Adelaide Oval
When: Saturday, April 20, 2022
Time: 7pm
Last time: Port Adelaide 13.14 (92) l Adelaide 15.6 (96) at Adelaide Oval, round 3, April 1 this year.
Overall: Port Adelaide 26, Adelaide 25.
Past five games: From the most recent, L W W W W L
Scoring averages: Port Adelaide 87, Adelaide 90
Tightest margin: Three points, twice (Adelaide wins in Showdowns 39 and 45).
Biggest margin: Port Adelaide by 75 points in Showdown 48; Adelaide by 84 points in Showdown 43.
By the venue: Adelaide Oval, Port Adelaide 7, Adelaide 9; Football Park, Port Adelaide 19, Adelaide 16.
Robbie Gray v Adelaide
Showdowns: 21 (won 12, lost 9)
First: Round 6, 2009 (won, kicked three goals)
Disposal count: 448 (230 kicks, 218 handballs)
Best: 37 (20 kicks, 17 handpasses) Showdown 40, round 2, 2016 at Adelaide Oval
Score: 38.19
Best score: 6.0 (five goals in third term). Showdown 46, round 8, 2018 at Adelaide Oval
Showdown Medals: 5 (2010, 2015, 2018 x 2, 2019)
