PORT ADELAIDE senior coach would love to send retiring captain Erin Phillips out on a high on Saturday afternoon at Alberton. 

Arnell’s group finishes its season against GWS this weekend, among the celebration of NAB AFLW Pride Round and the skipper’s final game of football. 

Arnell spoke to the Adelaide media on Thursday at Port Adelaide’s Empowered leadership event for young women at Adelaide Oval. 

Arnell on the Empowered program 
“A pretty special event here at Adelaide Oval. We've got 50 schools, which our community arm of our football club run so Power Community Limited delivers a Respectful Relationships programs for young women in schools, across 50 different schools throughout the broader area of Adelaide. It's been really nice to interact and speak with some young women who hopefully have some really bright futures ahead.  

“Having a 10-year career as a teacher as well, coming to days like this and seeing the students and teachers interact in a space that's not a classroom hopefully adds real value for them. It's a real privilege to be in the position that we're in to be able to generate some positivity for a range of people that might be going through some tough times.” 

Arnell on this week 
“We're so excited for Saturday. It has certainly been a big week. We played at five o'clock in Melbourne on Sunday night, came back to Adelaide Monday morning and it's been go, go, go since and the vibe around the group is always a really positive one. I think having Erin's retirement announcement this week and rolling into a Saturday afternoon final game at Alberton at 2:30 is genuine excitement among our group. 

Arnell on the hope for Saturday’s game  
“We're doing absolutely everything that we can, like we do every week, to search for a win and to send Erin out in the right way is a huge driver for us this week and it's created an additional level of excitement.” 

Arnell on Erin Phillips this week 
“Erin's one of the more resilient athletes you'll ever meet. Obviously Tuesday was a really big day with the press conference and announcement and a huge amount of commitments for Erin in the last couple of days and now we just make sure that we allow her to focus on footy on Saturday afternoon and know that there's huge support and love for her beyond our football club and within the team to make these last few days as enjoyable as they can be and acknowledge the emotion too. It's been an emotional build up and you use that to add fuel to the fire if there's anyone that possibly needs that.” 

Arnell on this season 
“There's a range of learnings that we have to take and there have been crucial moments in games where for three, or three and a half quarters you've done everything you can to earn a win and then there's these really crucial moments late in quarters and late in particularly the Suns game where the lack of focus and application to what we know is required has let us down. You take learning from that but you also take confidence from (parts). That Suns game, as much as it still drives me nuts thinking about it and it will for a long time, and it burns for our whole group, that team is sixth on the ladder and I think could finish top four. So when you're in the position that we're in and you do everything you can against a team like that to win a game outside of closing out those last couple of minutes and you have a draw against the sixth-placed team, you have to take a lot of belief from that.” 

Arnell on what is required for growth as a playing group 
“There is going to be some natural growth in having a second off-season for our group. There's a huge group of our players that have only had one genuine off-season and in AFLW where you only play 10 games of footy, it you're in the team for 10 games, you have to maximise what is really a six-month spell away from the club and really maximise the off-season program you have and so there's a big focus on that. Then there will be natural evolution of list management which will come over the next month and a half. There's a draft on December 18, which is very close to Christmas and very close to a due date for myself. There will be natural turnover of list that happens in every football team and then there will be some progression where we will ask our players to really apply themselves to an absolute standard going into another off-season.”