PORT ADELAIDE coach Mark Williams says it’s sink or swim time for the out of contract players at Alberton as the club prepares for another, regular meeting on its list management.
Williams has granted fringe players greater opportunities over the last month and, with the emergence of impressive youngsters Mitch Farmer and Nick Salter on Sunday, he said time was running out for some players to prove their worth at Port Adelaide.
“We’re going to spend some time on list management tomorrow,” Williams said.
“It won’t be on just hearsay. We’ll watch a lot of tape on the players that have played over the year and try and weed through, which ones [will stay and go].
“There aren’t too many players that have put a huge cross against their name in the last few weeks.
“They are either maintaining [their standing], or, treading water if you like, or, they are just bobbing up a little bit higher. We still look forward to them proving themselves one way or another.”
Williams was personally leaning towards a decision on certain players, but said the final call would be left up to the entire match committee and wouldn’t be made until the end of the season.
He also maintained that interest from uncontracted players at other clubs remained high.
“Right at the start of the year I knew how many players were out of contract and how many were borderline,” he said.
“(The number of changes) will be between the three that you have to make and 10 that you can pick and choose from, which is a quarter of the list, if you like.
“I can guarantee that individual players [from other clubs] ring me up and that’s a nice thing. They are talking about their futures and what they see in their future at Port Adelaide.
“It’s a nice feeling and our recruiting people, as well as being certain on the lower draft picks, are also concentrating on who might come through as an uncontracted player.
“We’ve got lots of flexibility in the salary cap and we look forward to the best player available coming here and making an impact straight away.”
The performance of debutants Farmer and Salter were two big positives for the Power in Sunday’s heartbreaking loss to St Kilda.
Travis Boak continued to impress in his second season, as did defender Alipate Carlile, who had the job on Saints star Nick Riewoldt.
Young defender Paul Stewart also had his best game in the black, white and teal.
“We took a lot of positives out of that game. We went into it without most of our experienced leaders and we were in front with five minutes to go in the game; those last five minutes have really cost us this year, in a lot of games,” Williams said.
“We saw some young players really stand up. I thought both Carlile and Boak were outstanding for guys in, basically, their second year of playing AFL footy and against some good quality opponents.
“Then there were the two young blokes that came in. Nick Salter showed enough in a quarter and a bit and looks promising and exciting for our supporters.
“Mitch did some nice things for a young guy. We had a really young backline in there and for them to work really well together was pleasing.
“The ball went into our defensive 50 61 times, so to keep (the St Kilda forwards) down was good. In the last quarter, their forwards probably got away a little and you talk about the fatigue factor; a lot of our backs looked tired in the last quarter, which was disappointing for us.”
