BRETT Ebert has only once doubted Travis Boak.

"I was in the rehab room - troubled by groin injuries - and Trav comes in to join me in recovery," recalls Ebert of the tumultuous 2012 season when the club was in dire financial trouble and Boak was being courted by Victorian rivals, in particular Geelong.

"He was injured and I wondered, 'Trav are you going to come back?' and I was not thinking about coming back to Port Adelaide, but the game itself.

"We have all seen for the past decade that Trav leaves nothing to chance - he is the ultimate professional. And that is what everyone tells me of Dad (Russell). 

"Trav understands his body. He will do the extras. He will prepare the best he can. Dad did the same."

Last Saturday evening against Collingwood, as Boak played his first AFL game of the season, the two iron men of the Port Adelaide Football Club came to share the pedestal for most games played at the club - 392.

It is impossible - even flawed - to compare players of different eras, Ebert from the SANFL years from the 1960s to his retirement in 1985 and Boak during AFL professionalism from his arrival at Alberton in 2007 to today.

But there are remarkable similarities in their timelines.

Neither is from the club's traditional heartland of the LeFevre peninsula. Ebert arrived from Waikerie in the Riverland to make his league debut at the start of the 1968 SANFL league season eagerly seizing opportunity created by champion full forward Eric Freeman's absence with an Ashes Test cricket series.

Boak was called to Port Adelaide from the Geelong peninsula and Geelong Falcons under-18 team as pick No. 5 in the 2006 national draft when the recruiting staff ignored the internal prodding for local talent against a Victorian.

Despite the lack of a Port Adelaide upbringing, both Ebert and Boak have become so true - and have enhanced - the Port Adelaide Football Club's standing on and off the field.

And critically, they have both stood firm at Alberton during tumultuous moments. Ebert in 1983, at the start of his playing-coaching chapter, when the club had financial difficulties, the senior players walked on the demand to take a 50 per cent pay cut and star juniors were taken by VFL rivals. Boak in 2012 when the club's AFL licence was at risk through a financial crisis and the Geelong Football Club sent a delegation headed by coach Chris Scott to call him "home".

"Different times, the same challenges and two outstanding men - Russell Ebert and Travis Boak; we have been blessed as a football club," says Port Adelaide chief executive Matthew Richardson.

"It is much more than their reputations as footballers. Look at their values. 

"Travis is a man of loyalty. He proved that in 2012 when there was the question of his staying at Port Adelaide. Family is important to Travis. He highlighted - by staying at Port Adelaide rather than moving to Geelong - his commitment to his family at the football club. His father (the late Roger, who died of cancer in May 2005 when Travis was 16) would be so proud of how Travis stayed at Port Adelaide when the club was on its knees.

"Travis has underlined that care for his own at Port Adelaide by helping so many of his team-mates appreciate the professionalism required in this game - as we know by Travis taking a team-mate or two regularly with him on those pre-season training programs in the US.

"If you ever want to know why we have such a tight-knit group at Port Adelaide, think of what Travis Boak has meant to everyone in the clubhouse. Players talk about Trav when they think of loyalty, not just to the football club but to each other. That is an enormous legacy his has built at Port Adelaide."

The loyalty theme resonates with Brett Ebert when he notes the similarities with his father and a former team-mate.

"Dad never wanted to let anyone down - and you see that loyalty with Trav," says Brett Ebert. "And that extends outside the football club with how both have been so strong with charity (Ebert with Novita and Boak with childhood cancer)."

It is impossible to compare the SANFL era of Russell Ebert and the AFL cycle that Boak has known since arriving at Port Adelaide as a teenager who played in an AFL grand final in his first season. 

"Dad was 'professional' with his extras as a footballer at a time when he had to work in a bank or run a business during the 1960s-80s," Brett Ebert said. "Trav is in the era of full-time football, but he does more and more to be better and better. I remember the teenager who started in 2007 with his actions proving he would make a success - just as Dad did. Neither Dad nor Trav have been loud in their words, but they certainly make statements with their actions on and off the field.

"From the moment Trav walked into the clubhouse at Port Adelaide you knew he wanted this AFL career. I thought he would be a leader - and he became my captain."

Russell Ebert, as his son recalls, never cared for the personal records while playing a team game.

"He hated the stats that emphasised individual success," says Brett. "He did not care for the personal records, but he would be so proud to have this one - the club's game record - taken by Trav. He would love it.

"Dad always recognised the people who gave him the chance to achieve his records - the volunteers, his team-mates. That is why he dedicated his achievements to them. And you see the same with Trav. They were both close when Dad was working at the club and I know Trav has huge respect for Dad. It would have been a special moment for them to share when Trav gets the record - and I am sure Dad would be looking on with some pride and delight."

In 1985, when Ebert left the club's all-time games tally at 392, it was impossible to imagine the record falling. Boak this year will most likely take the record beyond the 400-game threshold. Will Boak hold it forever?

"It will get tougher and tougher to beat it," says Ebert. "The game is so fast and so demanding at the moment. That is why Trav's achievement is so amazing. This is a physical and brutal game. It will be hard to beat Trav for how he achieved the record."

There is one moment from Ebert's story that Richardson wants to become the comparable event for Boak.

"We live with the memory of Russell taking that drought-breaking flag in 1977 and saying, 'It took a long time, but by geez it is worth it', says Richardson. "Imagine Travis Boak finally getting that AFL premiership medal ..."