PORT ADELAIDE’s coaches were pleased with the intensity and physicality of Friday night’s internal trial match at Alberton Oval.

Players were frequently rotated from the black side to the white and vice versa in an evenly matched, and at times physical match.

A good crowd was on hand to catch a glimpse of new recruits Ivan Soldo, Brandon Zerk-Thatcher, Esava Ratugolea and Jordon Sweet along with four new draftees.

While Ratugolea left the ground late in the second term with knee soreness, his backline coach Tyson Goldsack expected the athletic backman to be available to face Adelaide in a match simulation hit-out next week.

Speaking after the internal trial, Goldsack also heaped praise on forward Mitch Georgiades for his performance after a long-term injury layoff and gave an update on some experienced players who could be back to face the Crows.

Tyson Goldsack on his initial impression of the intra-club match:

“It was good it was good for the most part. They’re always a weird-ish game with just a little bit more intensity than we’ve been getting at training. We knew that was going to be the case that it’d be a bit of a scrappy affair but I thought today was as good as we’ve seen.

“It was really even evenly matched which we tried to set up as best as we could… just to get a more competitive game. If you call it a possibles and probables, we had our probable forward line against our probable backline and the midfield was fairly evenly matched for most of it or thereabouts. We think we've had enough match play to get the connection between players so it doesn't really matter that we're not playing potentially the starting 18 for round one now. We can get a better outcome by having it that way.”

Tyson Goldsack on Mitch Georgiades’ first hit-out following his long-term knee injury:

“From a workload perspective, he's done a lot of work, a lot of running it's more the competing amongst numbers that's the next phase for him. There was a couple of contests out there today where he, I won’t say pulled out of it but he chose not to go into the dense numbers which is more than acceptable and we can totally understand that but from a match play point of view. But he looked good for a first run back.

“Often, you'll see guys a little bit timid to run or to change direction, but he's shown he can do all that really well. And we'll just keep stepping up how many times he gets himself into big contests with dense numbers.  It’ll all be set on how it feels, going off how he's feeling and how confident he is so he'll kind of go down his own path and then tell us.”

Tyson Goldsack on Esava Ratugolea and Charlie Dixon going off after the first half:

“We're not not overly concerned (about Esava). Just a little pinch on the knee. We expect him to be okay for next week. Whether or not we roll him out next week will be up to the medical team. He's done a lot of work so he's hasn't missed much footy at all over the summer. We’ve got two more games (in pre-season) so whether or not we choose to play him or not.

“And Charlie, yeah, that was always going to be the plan coming in to play half, which is probably what he needed to do. He's had a lean couple of weeks, so he's just been kind of running laps and getting some fitness. I thought he played okay, he competed really well, got knocked around a few times and then got up.”

Tyson Goldsack on the physicality and intensity of the contest:

“Have you been at any of our other training? They don't back off, which as coaching staff you can get a little bit concerned. We had a chat before we went out there that they're still your teammates, even though they’re in a different jumper today, they're still teammates, so nothing untoward but we still want to get some decent matchplay out of it and that only comes from being physical and treating it like an actual match at that level of intensity.”

Tyson Goldsack on the absences of Aliir Aliir, Trent McKenzie and Jeremy Finlayson from the intra-club match:

“They're available for next week. Trent McKenzie might not be, he might be the week after, but he'll be okay for when he needs to be okay. It’s just about making sure we get enough time, enough work into him now to not have to push him too early in his in his rehab, but the other guys – Aliir, Jez, yeah, they’ll be good to go.”