Port Adelaide defender Hannah Dunn is looking forward to this weekend’s AFLW Pride Round match, which is the first game of its kind to be held at Alberton.
“It’s Pride Round this week and we're super excited because it’s obviously the first time we’ve played in a Pride Round match but also being able to host it as well,” Dunn said.
“So there's been a bit of a buzz around the group and last night we were given these (rainbow) socks and told to dress up in rainbow for training so it was a good vibe.”
The AFLW side had a training session featuring rainbow ribbons and accessories on Tuesday, after the club unveiled its inaugural Pride guernsey on Monday evening.
The design centres around a fingerprint, signifying the beauty of human individuality and the inclusion of all who make up the Port Adelaide family.
“Last night after training, we had a presentation from the girls that designed (the guernsey) and basically, as everyone is individual, so is their thumbprint, or fingerprint, and no two people have the same fingerprint,” Dunn said
“So that’s just us celebrating that no two people are the same and we want to celebrate everyone as individuals, no matter who they are.”
Dunn admitted the loss against Hawthorn was one of the most heartbreaking of the season, with the Power losing its halftime lead and struggling to convert scoring opportunities.
“Last weekend was really disappointing,” the former Gold Coast captain said.
“It probably hurt the most out of all of them because we won in pretty much every stat but just didn’t kick enough goals and obviously goals win you games. There’s probably a couple of key areas that we just need to clean up a bit, but we were happy with the way we started and we’re looking to play four quarters of footy…we just didn’t capitalise when we did go forward.”
The Port Adelaide attack could be bolstered by the return of key forward Gemma Houghton for this weekend’s clash against North Melbourne, pending a successful full training session on Thursday.
“We’d love to have her back,” Dunn said.
“Hopefully she can be the missing part to the recipe. She was modified (at training) last night, I think she was only out of one of the drills and on Thursday she will be in full training and that will hopefully put her up for selection for the weekend…we're all hoping she'll be fit.
“(Gemma) disrupts the other team's defensive structures. I mean, I’ve played on her at training and she's one of the hardest forwards I’ve ever had to man up on because she’s tall, if you stand in front of her she'll get it over the back and in a footrace no one can catch her. She crumbs her own footy, she's so hard to defend.”
Dunn admits her side is staying strong and positive, despite the finals window beginning to close.
“It’s been a hard couple of weeks, obviously not winning games a few weeks in a row, it takes its toll and people sort of start to look internally a bit and probably get a bit low on confidence,” she said.
“(But the ongoing positivity), it’s coming from everyone and it’s definitely coming from the top, so the coaches and the staff and the leadership group, but even the new draftees, they’re driving it as well.”
Port Adelaide will host Pride Round at Alberton Oval this Saturday, where it will take on North Melbourne from 12:40pm ACDT.
