HISTORY is repeating in a week loaded with historical significance. While the Port Adelaide Football Club is being challenged (and frustrated) off the field, the need to deliver all the club stands for - winning games - is not lost on coach Ken Hinkley and his players.
In a repeat of all master coach John Cahill and his premiership-winning Port Adelaide players faced in 1990 and 1994 during heated AFL licence battles, Hinkley and his coaching and playing groups have steadfastly concentrated on the grudge match with Brisbane at the Gabba on Saturday.
It is a throwback to the undistracted Port Adelaide way of the 1990s while the off-field battle to wear the club's traditional black-and-white jumper as a Showdown speciality guernsey continues in high-level talks with Collingwood and the AFL.
Rather than a distraction, the "prison bars" battle might galvanise Port Adelaide at a time when Hinkley wants his team in "battle mode" to end a three-game losing streak against Brisbane.
"We are focused on Brisbane - and four points," said Hinkley at Alberton Oval on Friday. "I am more worried about Brisbane and what our players are going to be like to play against Brisbane.
"Let's beat Brisbane. That is what I have to focus on."
But the importance of the black-and-white jumper - and the need to honour its heritage by winning today - is not lost on Hinkley.
"It is a significant battle for us," added Hinkley on the jumper saga. "As a football club we value the prison bar (guernsey) - and we should.
"But right now that challenge is over to (club president) David Koch and (club chief executive) Matthew Richardson and they will take control of that. My responsibility is to get all our energy into playing and winning games of football, like it should be.
"We (as a team) really love the prison bar jumper. You don't have to look too far to see (our fans) love the prison bar jumper (too).
"I was disappointed (on the AFL ruling), like the rest of the club. And that disappointment won't go away. It is who we are; it is the history of our football club. It is Port Adelaide. Those battles (to make the bars a Showdown jumper) will go on with the right people managing them.
"My role is to play Brisbane."
On the call to play - and risk the loss of four premiership points for wearing an unapproved jumper - Hinkley ruled out donning the bars in Showdown XLIX to spite Collingwood and the AFL.
"Absolutely not - I respect the competition," Hinkley said.
On selection, Hinkley confirmed the return of bullish midfielder-forward Sam Powell-Pepper to cover the vacancy of former captain Travis Boak, who has been sidelined for a week with a quad injury.
This is to be the one-for-one change to the match 22 who beat St Kilda by 54 points on Anzac Day at Adelaide Oval. The 23rd man medical substitute will be confirmed on match day with Port Adelaide travelling to Brisbane on Saturday - rather than a day earlier - under the return to 2020 COVID protocols after last weekend's lockdown in Perth.
"As disappointing as it is to have Trav out, it is exciting to have Sam back in the side because we know he brings a different element to our team," Hinkley said.
Powell-Pepper steps up from the SANFL - after a 34-disposal workout against Glenelg - to play his 77th AFL match after stepping away from football late in the pre-season in March to focus on his life.
"It was to get himself in a good physical and mental health state," Hinkley said. "It was for him to get himself organised and be right and put himself in a really solid state. His football always was going to be pretty simple - Sam plays his footy pretty well when he is right and going.
"So when he got everything else under control for him - and we gave him the time to do that; we understood the situation - credit to where credit is due, Sam has come back in a really good space. He has the great support of his team-mates and we look forward to him supplying some of that support back to the team on (Saturday) night."
Powell-Pepper will retain the challenging mix of being a midfielder and forward who applies strong defensive pressure to opposition team seeking quick rebounds from Port Adelaide's forward-50 arc.
"He plays midfield-forward; that's what his role always has been with us," Hinkley said. "We have good balance between our mids - Willem Drew; Dan Houston, who has playing quite a bit in there; Ollie (Wines); and people like (Robbie) Gray and (Connor) Rozee who can come up (from the forward zone) to fill some roles in the midfield.
"(Powell-Pepper's return) makes us more flexible."
Port Adelaide will seek to end a three-game losing run against Brisbane that has had its own selection challenge in covering the loss of Brownlow Medallist Lachie Neale who is sidelined by an ankle injury.
"We haven't beaten them for a while. They have been too good for us, too strong for us at times," Hinkley said. "Both teams are pretty desperate to play well again because we have so much respect for the opposition we are coming up against.
"We want to beat Chris Fagan and his group as much as they want to beat us. So it is going to be a great game."
Hinkley anticipates this backdrop - on a rain-drenched deck at the Gabba - to set up a "physical battle".
"That's what it becomes (with rain) - and a mental one," Hinkley said. "We're capable of that and I am sure Brisbane are capable of that too. We just have to go into battle mode as much as we need to. And we are capable of doing that. It won't worry us ..."
Boak is expected to recover for the home Showdown derby with Adelaide next Saturday.
"We are absolutely confident it is just a one-week (stop); he has been carrying it for a couple of weeks and it just got to a point where it is not quite getting better, so we had to bite the bullet," Hinkley said. "(The rest) gives him a chance (to recover)."
Amid the constant note on how experienced 31-year-old midfielder Tom Rockliff remains out of the AFL line-up, Hinkley emphasised the depth built on the player list at Alberton by saying: "We should bring up Trent McKenzie, Jarrod Lienert, Kane Farrell, Sam Hayes, Peter Ladhams. But there seems to be a fascination around 'Rock' because he is a really experienced player.
"He, like the other boys, will stay in good form and they will get a chance.
"The game we are playing is somewhat slightly different. We have had Drew come into the side and be a real big positive. And we forget that he is a young player who is emerging and getting better with every game he plays.
"Trav (Boak) has been in great form. Ollie (Wines) has been in great form. And Dan (Houston). The people who are probably in 'Rock's' way are all playing really strong, solid football. That is the reason, as is Tom Clurey, Aliir Aliir and Tom Jonas all playing in great form and frustrating Trent McKenzie as well ... there's lots of conversations around other players."
