PORT ADELAIDE defender Lachie Jones said his decision to stay at Port Adelaide was an easy one, with the childhood Power fan keen to remain in his beloved black, white and teal. 

Jones has had a breakout year, playing 18 games in 2024, and having a real impact in the backline.  

Speaking after his two-year contract extension announcement, Jones spoke on what the new deal means to him, how he is managing his body at this point in the season, and the upcoming finals series. 

Jones on his contract extension 
“Yeah, pretty grateful to still be able to play the club I grew up supporting. Fairly easy decision to make. It was just a matter of getting it done. But yeah, stoked to get two more years, so excited about the future to come. (It means) heaps. And obviously I'm from Adelaide as well, so I don’t have a go-home factor. This is my home. I know mum and dad didn't want me to go anywhere, so they're pretty stoked about it. Just made everything so much easier. 

“I don't know if there were offers (from other clubs). My manager said that a couple of clubs were keeping tabs, but at the end of the day, like I said, I wasn't probably going to look anywhere else. Port was probably always going to be where I was going to stay. Well, not probably, it was!” 

Jones on his injury history 
“Yeah, probably not 100 per cent out of the woodwork. I've got a bit of work to do in the off season to get back to sort of feeling 100 per cent confident in my body. This year, I played the most games I have in the last four years, and my body's definitely starting to feel it. So I’ll probably be doing a trip in the off season with a few other boys to try and nut a few of those issues out, and hopefully from here on out, have a pretty injury-free run. I think we're going to go to Wisconsin with a couple of physios. One of the universities or colleges in Madison have a program that they do. So, yeah, I'm not sure who exactly is going but we'll hopefully get there.” 

Jones on managing his body 
“Obviously the hamstring stuff is – I’ve been dealing with that for four years. This year's probably been the best year I've had. I've only had a minor little strain that probably kept me out for two weeks. I think all the other stuff has just been pretty innocuous little hits and bumps that have caused me to be sore a couple days later, things to flare up. So I'm not too stressed about it, but hopefully we can work those issues out in the off season and come back with the body feeling 100 per cent next year. 

“Physically, I think this weekend off will be huge. Obviously, going into the Thursday night game is a shorter turnaround, but I felt good today, I was pretty sore after the weekend. But yeah, we'll take every day in the next week to feel 100 per cent. That’s sort of how it's been, sore after the game, and then come into it feeling confident.” 

Jones on Josh Sinn as an option to fill a defensive role 
“Yeah, I suppose we're quite alike in the sense that we've both had hamstring issues, probably due to the power that we've got in our legs. Yeah, I feel like he's overcome a lot of issues as well. And I think he's feeling relatively confident in his body. And then obviously we've got to hole to fill next week, with Kane (Farrell) going out with a hamstring issue. So I think he puts his hand up. There's a few other boys as well that'll be on that list of players. So we'll see how the next few days rolls out and training on the weekend.” 

Jones on filling the gaps left by Dan Houston and Kane Farrell 
“I probably have to step up a little bit, but obviously won't be taking on the roles as, you know, the booming kicks that they are, and taking kick-ins. They're quite attacking offensive players, whereas I've sort of been more known for my defensive stuff. I think Logan Evans last week showed that he stood up as well and had a cracking game, and obviously got rewarded with the Rising Star nomination. And, yeah, I think like you touched on, (Josh) Sinn and (Dylan) Williams, probably two knocking on the door for the last few weeks. And I think they're quite alike players, obviously different levels of experience, but I think those boys will be able to fill a role, and if not, I think that the whole back line as a group will stand up and do what needs to be done.” 

Jones on the win over Geelong earlier in the year 
“I didn't actually play that game, so I watched that one from the couch, but obviously we know they've got some big threats. (Jeremy) Cameron probably being their biggest, just given the license to do whatever he likes. I think (Miles) Bergman went to him last time and did a pretty good job. Jed McEntee went to (Tom) Stewart and nullified his impact.  

“I think we will take great confidence from the last six weeks that we've had, that our footy is good enough. And, you know, like I said, we've beaten them earlier in the year, at a place where we haven't for a while. And I think we take great confidence out of the fact that we have done that, and we've got the got the players that can stand up and do big jobs.” 

Jones on Darcy Byrne-Jones’ role 
“It's been great having versatile players. I feel like we've always had that strength. For the time I've been at the club, versatility of players being able to play forward, back, mid, wherever need be. And like you touched on, we sort of joked about it after the game, we were giving Darcy praise for coming back and giving us a hand and obviously much appreciated. But then I think we sort of forget that he is an All-Australian backman as well, and you probably just don't lose that knack of knowing how to play defence, and he's done a great job up forward.” 

Jones on Kane Farrell’s injury 
“Yeah, he's suffered the same injury that I had two years ago at the end of the season. And yeah, in talking to him about sort of the recovery process and all that, obviously it's not great. It takes a big hit for us. Obviously Dan, two weeks before, and Faz this week are probably two of our most attacking defenders gone. He's really positive, you know, he's been into the club, doing what he can, a bit of upper body strength, and I think he’s working on his biceps and his triceps, which he probably needs.” 

Jones on the approach to finals 
“It’s still week by week. We finished off our review from the weekend’s game today, and we'll have the next couple of days off and it’ll be good to just get away for a couple of days and reset, and then coming in Saturday we'll focus solely on Thursday night. And then whatever happens from there, whether we get a week off or not, we'll probably do the same thing. We'll get a little period to reset following the game and review it as we need to, and then move on to the next one.” 

Jones on the fitness of the squad now versus last year entering finals 
“It's nothing we haven't dealt with before. So I think it gives good us confidence that players will be able to be shifted and stand up in those roles. Obviously, it's not great with the two boys going down, down back, but I’ve got confidence that whoever plays on Thursday night will have what it takes to stand up against a pretty strong forward line.” 

Jones on Jeremy Finlayson’s new contract 
“Yeah, huge. I think probably takes a lot of stress off, a lot of worrying for him going into the off season. You know, he obviously hasn't played for a few weeks, and he's getting a checkup today, and everything's going all right. And I think, it gives him confidence that once he's fit and ready to get running again, he can roll straight in and look forward to bouncing back next year and having a big year. We need players like Jez that are mobile forwards to be fit and firing, and it creates depth as well.”