TRAVIS Boak has been rated ninth in the annual AFL Players' top 50 poll, just one place above teammate (and good mate) Robbie Gray.
Boak enters his third season as Port Adelaide's captain as one of the AFL's hardest working midfielders.
The 2011 winner of the Power's John Cahill Medal, and now a two-time All-Australian, Boak continues to build on consecutive strong seasons after a difficult 2012 campaign that saw him sidelined by injury.
His second half of that difficult season, and commitment to the club during one of its darkest periods, helped earn the affection of the Port Adelaide faithful.
Gray surges into top 10 of AFL Players' poll
But it has been his leadership since taking over the club's No. 1 guernsey that has seen Boak rise in the estimation of his fellow players.
Playing all bar-one game last season, he was again the Power's highest polling player in the Brownlow Medal count and finished second in the club's best and fairest.
That too is the second time he has achieved the feat, highlighting his incredible consistency as one of the club's top players.
Taken at pick 5 in the 2006 draft, the Torquay born and raised product has found a new home at one of Australia's oldest clubs, adding to a long line of strong leaders to guide the club on and off the field.
Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley heaped praise on Boak after the Power's narrow preliminary final loss in 2014, and expects him to grow further in the role of captain.
Boak was recently rated the league's fourth best captain in the players' association's end of year awards.
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"Travis: Pretty fair player, isn't he? [An] amazing young captain, he's only going to get better," Hinkley said at the end of the Power's last campaign.
"He's a big time captain, who plays incredibly good on, obviously, game day when it counts.
"I don't individualise very often, but he is one of the very best captains in the competition.
"I know, at the time I was at Geelong, we talked about taking Boak.
"Port Adelaide took Boak before the Cats, and now I end up coaching Port Adelaide, and coaching Boak.
"I went to his house... sat at his kitchen table that year [before] the draft and he was a great, young player at that stage and he was going to be a great, young leader.
"The good ones compete, they know how to keep competing."
Robbie Gray (tenth) and Chad Wingard (36th) also made the AFL Players' top 50.
