PORT ADELAIDE senior coach Ken Hinkley chatted with media at the club's Captain's Run on Friday morning.

Here are the key takeouts ahead of tomorrow's clash with the Western Bulldogs in Whyalla.

Hinkley on Robbie Gray's availability:

“Rob will play. He’s fine. He’s just getting through the end of pre-season.

“Basically, he got a little kick in his foot. That’s as open as I can be. There isn’t much wrong with him other than he just wants to make sure it’s absolutely pristine for the start.

“It’s been a long pre-season for him. He’s in really good shape. If there was any risk with any of our players for this week, we wouldn’t take that chance.

 Hinkley on the extended squad:

“What we will do is we will play no more than 23 at any one time.

“All the squad will be available to play throughout the day. If we want to manage some people, we may bring other people in after half time.

“There is no one at this stage who won’t play.    

 Hinkley on Brad Ebert:

“Brad (Ebert) is really comfortable where he’s at.

“Effectively, Brad didn’t play much football from about round 6 on last season.

“We are actually giving him a bit more game time to make sure he’s in the best shape we can to make him available for round 1.       

“That’s been the planning round Brad.

 Hinkley on the ruck options to help out Scott Lycett:

“We have Westy out there. We have Charlie (Dixon) out there. We have Todd (Marshall).

“Scotty (Lycett) is the type of ruckman who needs to ruck about 80 pre cent of the game. That’s when we get our best results out of Scott.

“It’s the last game of the pre-season and we need someone to get used to rucking. Scott played in the All-Stars game a week ago and didn’t get a lot of minutes.

“He needs a lot of minutes tomorrow.

 Hinkley on the side's best ruck options:

“We think that’s the best method for him having had him here for 12 months.

“We know Pete (Ladhams) is an up and coming ruck young ruck, but we need both boys to demonstrate they can impact the game in the front half because that’s where they have to spend some minutes.

“We are not going to be a team who can carry two ruckman 50/50 and have only three on the bench.

“We are figuring out if we can get one of them to play a little bit more forward, that would be a great option for us.

 Hinkley on Trent McKenzie

“He played last round of last season and had a really good finish to last year.

“He’s had a great pre-season, so deserves his opportunity to be a part of the back six or seven we have there at the moment.

 Hinkley on Mitch Georgiades:

“It will be exciting again to see him play.

“We’ve only got to see him play one game against Brisbane, and this is another opportunity to show us what he can do.

“It’s really exciting for us. We have a number of young players in our side, so we are looking forward to Mitch (Georgiades) being one of those young boys who we see some more improvement out of.

 Hinkley on the club's pre-season:

“I believe the group is in a really good position.

“We have had another pre-season together. We are somewhat a younger side but we also have some experienced players who are back this year and in really shape.

“That gives you great optimism. Everyone who is supporting at the moment would be looking at that.

“Overall, we have nearly had a perfect pre-season. 

“The challenge within any football season is to survive collision.

“For us, we haven’t had too much of that to worry about at the moment. You do need to start in a healthy position and we are in that space right now.

 Hinkley on Jackson Mead:

“He’s right to go.

“We were very cautious with him in the 23s and left him out because he’d come off the back of a little hamstring injury.

“He’s got an enormously bright future and the sooner we get to play a few more games, you’ll see a pretty exciting player I think.

 Hinkley on Jack Watts:

“I think Jack (Watts) will be back playing again soon.

“He’s had a little calf injury, so he hasn’t had anything major go wrong with his rehab. He’s actually in really good shape.

“Two weeks ago he was back playing football. Other than the little calf injury that he’s getting over, and he’s back running now, so he should be right by the time the season starts.

 Hinkley on coming to Whyalla for the Community Camp and Marsh Series:

“It’s fantastic for us to come here.

“When we consider it’s our 150^th year, Port Adelaide has great roots out here in Whyalla, and now with the GFG alliance as well, it is certainly stronger.

“The ground is in magnificent condition. We are just happy to be out here and part of the community.

“That’s Port Adelaide, that’s who we are. We tend to spend a lot of time in the community and we are going to enjoy our time here.

“Hopefully we put on a good performance.

“But hopefully we can make them realise that they can get there too.”