A FOUR-DAY tour of Shanghai begins today when six Port Adelaide players, coach Ken Hinkley, head of high performance Darren Burgess and a contingent of club staffers fly to Shanghai to promote the Power's historic May 14 game.
Travis Boak, Robbie Gray, Chad Wingard, Ollie Wines, Paddy Ryder and Brad Ebert will tour Shanghai from Monday 28 November until Friday 2 December undertaking fitness training under Burgess and helping host junior footy clinics in Century Park.
The tour is intended to promote goodwill and an understanding of Aussie Rules in the lead-up to the Power's Round 8 game against the Gold Coast Suns next year.
Additional to its training and clinic program, the Power will:
- Host a virtual reality experience at its clinics
- Hold a specialist training session with the Chinese National Australian Football team – Team China - for local school teachers to learn the game, led by senior coach Ken Hinkley.
- Utilise the opportunity as a reconnaissance exercise to determine the logistics and requirements ahead of its Round 8 game.
- Fly the graduates of its Aboriginal AFL Academy to conduct its second annual cultural exchange tour of China.
“Port Adelaide is very excited about what lies ahead on this tour, because it will be our first chance to bring elite, highly-trained Australian footballers playing our country’s native game to mainland China,” Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas said ahead of the tour.
“We have had excellent support from the local government in bringing AFL to China and this will serve as the first time Shanghai’s citizens have been exposed to Australia’s No. 1 sport.
“This tour also gives Ken Hinkley and Darren Burgess the chance to undertake a range of operational tasks: learning how to operate in Shanghai, how the stadium will work for us, the duration it takes to get to the ground and so on.
“So we’ll be making the most of this trip before we arrive to play for premiership points in May.”
