PORT ADELAIDE’s football boss Chris Davies says club stalwart Travis Boak will be given time to consider whether he wants to play on, but if he elects to continue, it will be at Alberton.
Boak and his teammates went through their exit interviews over the last two days and attention will now turn to a thorough review by the football department of the season.
In a wide-ranging 28-minute press conference, Davies spoke about a number of topics including Boak’s future and that of various other players, trade discussions and the wash-up of the club’s exit of the finals at the weekend.
Chris Davies on the feelings within the camp in the aftermath of the semi-final loss to Greater Western Sydney:
“It was a really disappointing end to a season that probably promised more than that. We’ll go through a review process over the next few weeks but in terms of the game itself, it was a disappointing end to a season that we thought could be better.”
Chris Davies on how season 2023 panned out:
“We came into this year and people maybe didn’t have the same expectations (of us) at the start of the year as they do at the end. We approached this year, we thought we had a good chance but there were people outside of the club who are probably critical right now who didn’t think we’d end up in the situation we did through the minor round. That’s something we reflect on that the minor round was actually quite a good performance. We had games there which we lost that we have to reflect on because we lost quite badly in terms of both margin and some of the key stats in the game, and then we go into a finals campaign where clearly, we had some guys who were underdone but ultimately some of the things that worked during the minor round didn’t work during the finals. Our midfield in both games weren’t at their best and they were people who were really good for us through the year.
“I’m optimistically thinking some of those things will be better through experience. It’s hard to sit back now and think that Connor, Zak, Jason Horne-Francis won’t be better – Miles Bergman – won’t be better for the experience they’ve gone through this year and we’ll definitely need them to be better when the time comes and the whips are cracking into the future.”
Chris Davies on players including Todd Marshall and Trent McKenzie carrying injuries in finals:
“Todd played probably the second half of the season with niggles. Trent went into the game having the injury the previous week. The selection discussion with regard to Trent was a ¾ fit McKenzie was a better alternative to whoever else the coaches might have played and ultimately, they made that decision. Normally you’d go into a game where you would think that if Trent is your first choice then your next might be Jonas who was injured, and the next one after that is Clurey who was injured and then going into the season you’re left with some younger guys. Ultimately it favoured Trent on the night.
“I actually thought Charlie (Dixon) played well in terms of a guy who came in off a significant break out of the team. We certainly didn’t need him to be as injured as he was at the end of the year. And while that’s certainly not an excuse for the performance overall, we definitely had some guys who were key position players who were not at their fittest and we need to reflect on that through this next period. Sometimes that’s the cards you’re dealt.
“The injuries those guys got were all impact injuries. We’re not talking about soft tissue things that happen at odd times, these were impact injuries which have unfortunately happened quite regularly for us – outside of Tom (Jonas’) calf at training towards the end. If you think about Clurey, if you think about McKenzie, if you think about Todd (Marshall), if you think about Charlie (Dixon), even Scott Lycett, they’re big people in our team who unfortunately had collision type injuries which will have to be managed down the track.”
Chris Davies on out-of-contract ruck Scott Lycett’s future:
“Scott right now is thinking about whether he wants to continue to play. He’s had a pretty injury-interrupted last few years and the poor bugger right now, as much of a warrior he is, he is pretty banged up. You think of a guy who was able to get back at the end of the year probably earlier than he might, has worked hard but will spend some time away now to think about what he wants in the future first and foremost.”
Chris Davies on Orazio Fantasia’s future:
“We haven’t been able to finalise some of those list decisions because we need to go through a really important period of time for us from a trade perspective.
“We all see that Orazio has significant talent and we would have liked to have seen it more at AFL level in the past two or three years. Whether that means he continues to be contracted into the future remains to be seen but I think it’s more likely than not that we’ll want to give Raz an opportunity, but how the numbers fall out from a trade and list number perspective, I can’t answer that right now.”
Chris Davies on speculation Travis Boak would not be offered a contract for 2024:
“I live in a world where people speculate wrong things all the time so it doesn’t actually surprise me but I can only tell you what the actual position is.
“What I can absolutely guarantee you is that Travis is thinking about whether he has the passion to continue to play. If he wants to do that, he’ll be at Port Adelaide.
“If he wants to play next year, he’ll be at Port Adelaide but I think we all need to give Travis the respect and time right now to go away and think. This has been a guy who has been outstanding for this club who has done a lot. We understand the level of scrutiny he is under but he’s asked for a couple of weeks to ask about things and I’ve got no trouble at all.
“I cannot reiterate enough that if Travis wants to be at Port Adelaide next year as a player, then he will be. I think someone like Travis deserves far better than to play footy at SANFL level, and that’s not to be disrespectful to the SANFL, that’s my honest opinion, as it was with Robbie Gray, as it was with (Brad Ebert) Ebo, as it was with Hamish (Hartlett), as it was with all the people we’ve exited out of this club previously. That’s not only always our decision. We’re honest with a player around that, who we also think has some things to give us at AFL level, but we’ve got to go in both parties with our eyes open. We are absolutely doing that and we’ve told Travis that if he wants to play, we want him to continue to play for Port Adelaide at AFL level, not be thinking about playing at SANFL level. We want him to have the best possible pre-season he can, if he continues to play, and be an integral part of our team as he has been for the last 17 seasons. At Trav Boak’s best he’s definitely part of our side and even not at Travis Boak’s best he’s better than some of the alternatives that we’ll either bring into the side in the future or we’ve already got.
“Trav is an absolute star and so the idea that we can’t be honest with our people and have honest conversations to me is not the way you want to approach these types of things. If Travis wants to continue to play at AFL level, which is more than his decision to make only and I’ll give him the time to do that, but if he wants to, it’ll be at Port Adelaide.”
Chris Davies on Western Bulldogs ruck Jordon Sweet asking for a trade to Alberton:
“We definitely want to get some additional talent into the squad in that position. As I understand it Jordon Sweet has told the (Western) Bulldogs that he wants to end up here and we’d like Jordon to end up here as well. We think he’s the premier ruckman in the VFL comp and he’s probably behind the best ruckman in the AFL comp. We think he’s got some obvious talent but we also think Dante Visentini has got a career ahead of him as well – a guy who is an aggressive young bloke who we think at 20 or 21 years of age could have a real future. But there’s no denying we’d like to bring in further talent into the rucks at the club.
“We’re interested in all of the potential ruck people who are thinking about moving from their initial club. If that’s Ivan Soldo, then we’ll certainly be in that conversation. Ultimately, we really value what Sam (Hayes) has brought to our club over a period of time but with this list, the numbers you work out through the trade period. Sam has done a job for us but in fairness to Sam we haven’t been able to commit to him being our number one ruck as well so we understand if he wants to look at what his options are.”
Chris Davies on how confident he is that deals will get done to bring Sweet, Geelong defender Esava Ratugolea and Essendon backman Brandon Zerk-Thatcher to the club during the trade period:
“We’re confident enough to enter the (trade) period wanting those deals to happen. Typically when players are out of contract it makes it easier for all of these types of deals to get done. The Esava situation was made harder (last year) by the fact he still had a year to run on his contract. That’s not the case this year so we’ll go into the trade period wanting good outcomes for the club and fair outcomes overall. We’ve got clear areas of our list that we know we’d like to fill. The one aspect of people confirming that they want to come and it getting out while the season is on is that you all get to understand that we see the same things sometimes. Bringing both Esava and Zerk to the club has the potential for us to fill some gaps that we think we struggled at the end of the year.”
Chris Davies on the future of defender Tom Clurey:
“Cluz is contracted but we’ve been honest in saying to Cluz that if we bring in these types of players it’s going to shuffle you down the order. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a future at Port Adelaide but equally, and Cluz has been a good person to have at our club, if he thought that his future was going to lie outside of Port Adelaide then we’d have to be good enough to be open to that.
“We’ve always taken the approach that if a player wants to look for more opportunities at another club, then I totally get that. These guys are professional footballers who want to play at AFL level. Cluz has had a lot of injuries so I’m tipping he would have played a whole heap more footy for us at AFL level if he wasn’t injured but the reality is that if those two guys come in then Cluz is going to be shuffled down the order and he’s going to have a fight on his hands. He’s fit now but it’s a few weeks too late. He had his (back) operation and he’ll be back running this week. He’s a fantastic guy and we’re not pushing him out but all these guys want to play footy at AFL level.”
Chris Davies on reports that Xavier Duursma could be traded and whether other players have sought trades:
“Nobody has actually asked to leave in the last two days but we’ve had conversations to say if a player isn’t playing in our AFL side regularly and thinks they should, then we’ve said let’s have that conversation – not now but in a week’s time and I’m sure there’ll be players who might come back to us but typically not too many players want to leave if they’re playing at AFL level.
“Xav is contracted and is in our AFL team every week. If he wanted to leave that’d have to be a proper discussion because I don’t think there’s any real reason for him to leave Port Adelaide so I’d expect him to be at pre-season at the end of the year.”
Chris Davies on whether it was right to re-contract coach Ken Hinkley before finals:
“Clearly there’s a want for this team to be better than what it is and the coach and myself and a few others cop the brunt of the criticism. I think that’s natural at this point in time.
“The reality is that they’re two different questions. Is Ken the coach for the future, should we have re-signed him at a time where we think he is? It hasn’t changed. We’re really disappointed with the way the end of the season went, but it doesn’t mean we have any less faith in Ken to be the coach for us in the next two years.
“If that’s a criticism (that the side lost its edge by Ken being re-contracted) then that’s hard to cop to be honest. There is not any person in this club who is sitting here feeling comfortable, whether that’s Ken or which player do you think dropped their edge? It just doesn’t happen in a professional sporting organisation. Anyone who has a long-term deal or a contract into next year wouldn't drop their intensity in this type of environment in a tough competition. It just doesn’t happen and those people get weeded out very quickly. Ken would not have lasted as long as he has if at any point, he’s come to the end of his deal he’s taken his foot off the pedal. It’s just not something that is real.”
Chris Davies on how Hinkley handles the pressure of being Port Adelaide’s senior coach:
“Ken is a resilient person. You have to be to be in this game. You have to be to be in the game for as long as he has. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t hear the criticism and he doesn’t take it on board. It doesn’t wash off of any of us easily, least alone Ken, who is a guy who has to front the media after the game. He’s the guy who cops it as we walk off after the game. He’s the guy who carries a fair bit of it down the street. You can’t avoid it but it’s part of the job.
“What I do know is that in the short period of time after the game Ken’s resolve to take this club forward and take it forward with success has not changed one bit. He is absolutely committed to getting this group of players, a group of players which largely he has picked in drafts and put a whole heap of faith in when maybe others might not have or didn’t, he feels like he has a group to take the club forward and if we can bring him some talent through the trade period in areas where you all can see we need some help in, then maybe we can be better. I think we can be. In fact, I have no doubt that we can be.”
Chris Davies on the futures of Quinton Narkle and Hugh Jackson:
“Narkle will be at the club next year as will Hugh. Hugh Jackson is a great story. Hugh is a guy who was very close to playing at AFL level this year a few times. We took him away for the experience. He was an emergency a few times but his form at SANFL level was outstanding in a year where I probably didn’t have high hopes of our SANFL team but they ended up in the finals.”
