PORT ADELAIDE had a couple of special guests at training today with Adelaide United coach Gertjan Verbeek and his assistant Gerald Sibon visiting Alberton Oval to take in the session.
The Dutchmen’s visit came on the invitation of Power forward Brad Ebert, who has been doing some work with the Reds in recent months.
“I’ve got to know (Gertjan) a little bit – I did a sports science degree over the last eight years or so and I finished it last year so through their pre-season and after I did my knee (last season) I was going out there a bit and hanging out with their high performance team seeing how the soccer team works and operates,” Ebert explained during a press conference on Monday afternoon.
“It was good to see him out there. The way that football is going, a lot of the time there are elements of soccer that can filter in and who knows, not as much the other way, but from our end there’s definitely the way they set up, their set plays, that you can continue to learn from.
“I have a bit of an interest in soccer and I enjoy it so getting out there and checking out another code is really interesting.”
Verbeek and Sibon watched the entire training session with insight from Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley, senior assistant Michael Voss and head of high performance Ian McKeown.
The pair were also toured around the Allan Scott Power Headquarters by Hinkley.
“Brad has already been a few times to our training pitch and he said if you like you can come to us, we are in pre-season now.,” Verbeek explained to portadelaidefc.com.au.
“I said ok. Monday I am free to on my free day I am down to watch training, the skills they did and maybe I can learn something.
“The head coach was so prepared to talk with us and he explained some things. It’s a bit different but some things are similar so it’s interesting.”
Verbeek was impressed with the size and power of the Port Adelaide players, as well as their ability to run out a lengthy training session.
“It’s incredible,” he said.
“We came here at 8:30 and now it’s three hours later. More than three hours on the pitch, I’m not used to it.
“Normally in football it’s one and a half hours long, sometimes shorter, two times a day so that’s a smaller amount but the sports are different, the field is bigger, there are more people on the field.
“They can (inter)change as many times (as they want). If you get (subbed) out in the soccer game, you can’t come on any more, you only have three substitutes so yeah, it’s interesting.”
The Dutchman admitted to being a fan of AFL, despite only having seen one game live.
“I went to the last game (against Fremantle). I wanted to go to the (Showdown) but it was sold out, we couldn’t get the tickets so we saw the last game of the competition. There was nothing on it but it was a good game and I like the sport.”
