Dear members and supporters,

It’s been a weird week for us all and first and foremost I hope you, your family and friends are all safe and well. In the back of our minds all year we’ve had to remind ourselves that we’re not through COVID despite life feeling relatively ‘back to normal’. This week we’ve been starkly reminded that this virus is not done yet and it can have devastating effect, no matter how well we are doing to guard ourselves against it in South Australia.

As a result of learning on Tuesday night that a COVID positive case had attended our game at the MCG on Sunday, our players and all travelling staff immediately underwent COVID tests and isolated until they received negative results. Thankfully, all our players and staff returned negative tests and were able to resume training as per their normal schedule.

Therefore, from a football perspective our program remains business as usual, with the team returning to training on Thursday in preparation for an important game against Fremantle this Sunday at Adelaide Oval, but with elevated protocols around the team.

The impact this latest outbreak has had on you though, our members and supporters, is not lost on us at the Club. The support we get whenever we travel is enormous and that was certainly the case last Sunday at the MCG.

Firstly, to our loyal Victorian-based members, our thoughts are with you as you start your seven-day lockdown period. We can’t imagine the stress and anxiety that you are most likely dealing with at the moment. We understand arranging your work schedule, home life, and kids schooling are some of the many things consuming your thoughts at the moment. As Ken says, football is the most important of the least important things in life. In saying that though, we are all thinking of you and we will do our best to put a smile on your face this weekend when we host Fremantle. We’ll also continue to provide plenty of information and content for you to consume on our club digital channels. Take care and please look after yourself and your family. Your Port Adelaide family is right behind you.

Equally, to our SA-based members who travelled to the MCG last Sunday and were seated in the tier 1 and 2 locations within the ground, we are thinking of you as well. Through no fault of your own, you are now forced to quarantine for 14-days under SA Health protocols. We understand these protocols are in place to protect the health and safety of our community, but we feel great empathy for you and your family.

And on top of that (if that’s not enough!) anyone who was in the greater Melbourne area between 20-25 May is unable to attend an event which is under a COVID management plan for 14 days, so to anyone affected by that and therefore unable to attend our AFL or SANFL games this weekend, we’ll be asking your fellow Port Adelaide supporters to cheer a little louder for you this weekend!

Please check the SA Health website for the latest COVID-19 information.

It is an uncertain time again for many of us. However, we all proved last year that we can navigate our way through the height of this pandemic and hopefully this is a short term bump in the road that we will successfully work through without compromising the health and safety of our community.

On a more positive note, our Sir Doug Nicholls Round game this weekend will go ahead as first planned, albeit starting 40 minutes later at 4.50pm.

We all know how important this weekend is to the Port Adelaide Football Club.

It’s a great opportunity for us to acknowledge and celebrate the remarkable contributions past and present Indigenous players have made to our club.

And what an incredible legacy our Indigenous players have left here at Port Adelaide. Since Harry Hewitt represented our club in 1891, we’ve proudly had 63 Indigenous players play league football for Port Adelaide.

From the trailblazing Richie Bray in the 1960s, to the mercurial Ross Agius in the early 1980s to modern day heroes such as Byron Pickett, Gavin Wanganeen and the Burgoyne brothers, our Indigenous players have thrilled us for 130 years.

Today, we have seven Indigenous players on our playing list which is one of the highest in the AFL.

Our players this week will wear a magnificent Indigenous guernsey designed by Aboriginal artist Elle Campbell.

Across the last week, Elle has elevated herself as a leader amongst her people, not only for her talent as an Aboriginal artist, but for her empathy and maturity in a difficult situation. Her passion for her people, her family and Aboriginal art is inspiring and we couldn’t be prouder to wear her design on the field this weekend on such an important occasion.

Our relationship with Indigenous culture extends far beyond the football field.

We were the first club to appoint an Indigenous Board Director in Gavin Wanganeen and our flagship Aboriginal community program is the Santos Aboriginal Power Cup.

This year marks the 14^th edition of this program. The 2021 Santos Aboriginal Power Cup had more than 500 students from 65 schools involved, growing from 133 students and eight schools in its inaugural year in 2008.

The program focuses on engaging young people in Aboriginal culture, education, healthy lifestyle choices, teamwork, leadership and life skills.

To take part in the nine-a-side football carnival, each student was required to attain the required attendance and behavioural standards and complete required assessment tasks across the first two terms of the school year.

Over the history of the Santos Aboriginal Power Cup, the program has been directly linked to helping pushing towards the Closing the Gap target of Year 12 attainment, with 96 per cent of participants completing their Year 12 studies. To that end, we are proud to play our role in Closing the Gap.

The program is driving real social improvement for young Aboriginal people by improving school attendance and graduation rates and providing a platform for success in their future education, employment and life endeavours.

The Santos Aboriginal Power Cup is the longest-running joint football and education community program for Aboriginal students in Australian sport and our founding partner in that program, Santos, continues to support the students and their communities in delivering what is a life changing program for many young people.

On behalf of the club and also the thousands of students who have been involved in the program since inception, I’d like to thank Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher and his team for their ongoing support of the Aboriginal Power Cup.

Santos has been the major partner of the Aboriginal Power Cup for more than a decade and have actively been involved at all levels of our program including providing their staff for goal umpiring duties at the football carnival … talk about hands on. We love this commitment and so do the students.

We could not be reaching these positive educational outcomes without your support, so thank you.

Thanks also to the Government of South Australia-Attorney-General’s Department, the South Australian Aboriginal Secondary Training Academy (SAASTA), the Department for Infrastructure and Transport, Blooms the Chemist and Flinders University who this week joined as a partner of the program.

The last few days may have been a challenge for many of you, but this weekend we get the opportunity to showcase our fantastic community programs, but also ensure on-field we go into the mid-season break at 8-3. It’s going to be a big challenge but I know our team will be switched on and ready.

Thanks again to everyone for your incredible support of our Club this year so far, and we look forward to building on the base we have set for ourselves through the first half of the season.

Best wishes

Richo.