DEAN BROGAN arrived at Port Adelaide as a rookie - and already with national league honours in basketball - in 2000 for the club's fourth AFL season. The derby was still raw and he had his own reason to prove a point in Showdowns after being rejected at West Lakes after a solid month in training.

That so-called "chip on his shoulder" carried to Port Adelaide was nothing when Brogan compared his personal grudge to his notes from the induction rituals at Alberton.

"Day One," says Brogan, who returned to Australian football after reaching the top of the NBL mountain with the Adelaide 36ers, "and very quickly on arriving at Port Adelaide you learn there are two games each season that you don't lose ... Showdowns. That is the first lesson you get at Port Adelaide. That is part of your initiation to Port Adelaide. And experience tells you that losing just one Showdown becomes one of the worst things that can happen at Port Adelaide. Perhaps the worst."

Brogan came to Port Adelaide - via basketball, South Adelaide in the SANFL and the 1999 AFL rookie draft - without knowing the finer details of the scars of the showdown before all Showdowns. He was still short of his teenage years in 1990 when Port Adelaide had its AFL aspirations become a cuckoo's nest - a point of history that defines the derby to this day.

"I knew there was a dislike from Port Adelaide towards the other team, but I didn't quite understand it," says Brogan, a member of the breakthrough 2004 AFL premiership team. "I had to understand it more. I was unaware of all that happened in 1990 - I was 11. To this day, I still don't really understand what happened. But I know how raw the rivalry is at Port Adelaide ... I get it and I understand why it is so important to the Showdown."

Brogan played in 16 Showdowns. His fifth AFL game - of his career tally of 193 - was a derby, won by Port Adelaide by eight points at the end of the 2001 season when senior coach Mark Williams was recalibrating a playbook that set up a record seven consecutive wins in Showdowns.

Brogan finished with a 10-6 win-loss record in Showdowns, five consecutive victories in the derbies before his move to Greater Western Sydney in 2012 - and the Showdown Medal in the 20th derby played early in the 2009 AFL season. He also was the brute force that captured the venom of the rivalry in Showdown XXIV at Football Park in 2008.

And he saw fatigue overcome the rivalry until Port Adelaide returned to the core basis of the Showdown - "a sporting rivalry", as senior coach Ken Hinkley keeps re-iterating, that is based on neither club liking each other. There is no point hiding the reality.

"The Showdown lost its way," says Brogan, now re-established in Adelaide as the branch manager of FX, an IT service business, and at South Adelaide as a coach after working part-time at Port Adelaide in the pre-COVID seasons.

"It can never be just 'another game'. As a player, I remember I would look at the fixture for the two Showdowns - and I would want to be in the best physical condition for those two games.

"You can't play down what the Showdown is - and means. For the past 12-18 months, I have enjoyed both clubs telling it as it is ... the banter is good; it is real. It is all that the Showdown was from the start and everything it needs to be today.

"Port Adelaide makes it known that it 'hates' them on the other side. It is a strong thing to say, but the feeling towards them is even stronger. It was sold to us that we are working class, they are glamour. Has anything changed?

"They are arrogant. They don't rate us. They don't respect us. Mark Williams and (assistant coach) Phil Walsh would drive that agenda at Port Adelaide. They would find every little detail to the rivalry. Mark was very good at that. He could pick up the front page of the paper and point to all the other mob would have handed to them.

"This was about everyone having their place in the rivalry - you were with us or you were against us. No-one stands in the middle.

"It did become personal. A lot of us had a story that involved them - be it simply being overlooked in the draft. I had a pre-season there before they got rid of me. Showdowns are a good game to prove they made a mistake."

Brogan understands that in a new age with instant backlashes on social media how AFL players became reluctant to express their feelings on the Showdown rivalry ... until Port Adelaide captain Tom Jonas and Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines threw out the "arrogant and entitled" tag on their rivals last year.

"Good players use their voice during the week," said Brogan, the only man with an AFL premiership medal and NBL champions ring on his trophy collection. "We are now back to both teams buying into that rivalry with what they say before the game. That is good.

"We have two young teams that will battle out the Showdown for a decade now - it is Rozee, Butters and Horne-Francis where it was Cornes, Carr and Francou in my time. They are confident lads who want to be the best."

Brogan won his first three Showdowns while Williams lit a fuse and Chad Cornes carried the dynamite to the field.

"Spiteful, competitive, emotional ... and like no other game," says Brogan of the rivalry that began off the field in 1990 and at Football Park in 1997 with a Port Adelaide victory in Showdown I.

"If you want to downplay the rivalry, you will quickly learn that is not the way to approach a Showdown. You have to embrace the build-up. You have to be part of that drive to make these games more special than any other. The more experience you get to big games, the better you become as a player.

"The mental side of this game is as important as anything you are facing physically during a Showdown. I came through an era when players on both sides - good players - were confident to say it as they saw it. The game is better for it."

Brogan's first Showdown was on August 5, 2001 - a derby put in Port Adelaide's hands by a dominant third quarter that ended with defender Stephen Paxman kicking a goal to extend the lead to 16 points.

"You never forget your first," says Brogan of the Showdown experience. "And when you are aiming to play your best in this game, you will always remember winning the Showdown Medal. It is the hardest game you will play before finals. You know the city is divided. You know the game means a big deal to so many. You have to play to your best. You don't want to lose. I know the reaction you get from the fans - that disbelief that you could lose a Showdown.

"You know people expect so much from you as a player - and they expect the game to deliver a high level of football.

"And you want to be remembered for how you played in a Showdown. The memories will stay with Robbie Gray for the rest of his life. His legacy to the Showdown will be part of the game's history forever."

By 2012, Brogan was in charcoal and orange - and returning to Football Park to face an old foe in a game that had none of the build-up associated with a Showdown. But he had Chad Cornes alongside him.

"For the Greater Western Sydney players, it was always going to be difficult for them to understand the history Chad and I had with Adelaide," Brogan said. "There is no doubt the GWS players benefitted from seeing what a true rivalry means."Chad always made it known what the Showdown meant to him. He also liked to play well in the Showdown. But I would say his brother Kane was even more passionate about the Showdowns and the need to rise for these games. Same with Josh Francou. Some players have the Showdown resonate with them more than others."

Brogan is now watching the Showdowns as every fan does.

"It is the game I don't want to miss," said Brogan, who is occasionally behind the radio microphone at the ABC. "On my return to Adelaide from Sydney I was treated to Robbie Gray kicking five during the third term of a Showdown. My first Showdown experience as a fan at Adelaide Oval was insane. That is why I still love watching this game, why I love the banter that comes before, during and after a Showdown.

"In the real world, I know people love this game. And with every new Showdown, I am going to have someone mention what happened in that game in 2008 (when Brogan put Luke Jericho in the medical rooms with a sternum-crunching bump).

"Someone is always going to mention that.

"I go to the Showdowns wanting to see the next generation coming through and wondering what their legacy on the game will be. I saw Travis Boak, Robbie Gray and Ollie Wines perform on the big stage that is the Showdown. Now there is a new generation looking to do the same thing."