THE SHOWDOWN with Adelaide is one of the most anticipated games on the footy calendar for Power players and supporters, but young defender Nick Lower has his sights set on a showdown of a different kind.
In round 22, Port Adelaide will do battle with North Melbourne and Lower is hopeful the fixture will allow him to realise a long-awaited dream – playing against his identical twin brother Ed.
Lower, who spent the opening 11 rounds of the season playing for SANFL club Norwood, returned to the Port Adelaide line-up for the clash with Geelong and had pencilled in the inaugural battle with his brother for three weeks later.
Ed played 10-consecutive games for the Roos between rounds four and 13, but was sent back to the VFL just two weeks shy of the trip home to Adelaide to play the Power.
"The whole family was looking forward to the head-to-head, but unfortunately it didn’t happen," Lower said with a smile.
"Ed got dropped a couple of weeks before the game here [in Adelaide], but I thought he’d get back in and I was really looking forward to it.
"We play North Melbourne again in round 22, so hopefully we can have the long-awaited showdown."
The Lower brothers played their junior footy together until they were separated late in 2005.
Nick was drafted by Port Adelaide at pick 30 while Ed slipped through to the rookie draft, where the Power had planned to extend their already impressive band of brothers.
"The day I got drafted, Choco (Mark Williams) rang me and told me the club was going to try and get Ed in the rookie draft," he said. "We had pick 11 and Ed went pick 10, so it could’ve happened if North Melbourne hadn’t picked him up.
"The first year apart was pretty hard because we’d played all of our footy together and you kind of have to learn how to play again without your brother, but we still speak nearly every day."
Lower, 21, started his career with Norwood at 12 and, unlike the growing number of AFL players to be converted from other sports, footy was his number one passion.
"When I was younger I played Friday nights at Norwood, Saturdays at school (Prince Alfred College) and Sundays with my club Walkerville, so I’ve always loved my footy," he said.
"We had a pretty good side at Walkerville. We had Angus Monfries (Essendon), Andrew McIntyre (former Crows rookie), Toby Stribling (former Fremantle player), Ed and myself.
"In all, I think there were six guys who went on to play AFL."
Nick and Ed, despite favouring opposite feet, are both hard running defenders who possess the same physicality and attack on the ball.
They also share another trait, though unfortunate, when it comes to injuries and illness.
"It just so happens that any injury one of us gets the other seems, in due course, to get it too," Lower said.
"Ed and I had some calf problems a couple of years ago. Ed went off and got an operation and then a couple of weeks later I started to get the same symptoms and ended up in hospital to have the same procedure.
"It happens with everything and it’s bizarre. We’ve had hamstrings at the same time, thumbs at the same time and we even had arthroscopies at the same time.
"It’s at the stage now where, if one of us gets an injury, the other thinks they’re going to get it and it creates a mental issue where you end up convincing yourself you’ve the same problem."
