Port Adelaide Power Leadership Trip – February 9th and 10th of Feb 2018

We secured the opportunity late last year to send 4 coaches and 5 of our player leadership group across to Adelaide to visit Ken Hinkley and the Port Adelaide Football Club, it was too good of an opportunity to knock back. Jacob Welsh, Ryley Hall, Tom Gillies, Zak Sherman and Jarryd Garner were the players that went across with our coaches Travis Robertson, Dave Ryan, Jeremy Dyer & myself.

We arrived in Adelaide late Thursday night at our accommodation in Grange, a team briefing on the expectations of the weekend and then off to bed for a 9am start at Alberton Oval Friday morning.

Day 1: Meet and Greet then tour of Alberton with Ken Hinkley, game plan and modern teaching techniques with Aaron Greaves. We then met with Michael Voss and Travis Boak on leadership, leadership groups at football clubs, followed that up with a weights and conditioning session with Nick Richardson. We left Port and headed back to Grange, first for recovery swim and then for a debrief on leadership. Dinner, and few drinks at the Grange Hotel.

Day 2: Up for a 9am training session: Robbo took the tough running session in 26 degree heat that early, very tough indeed. We all worked together really well and pulled each other through. Recovery was another swim in the beach. A bit of relaxation time followed by a 2 hour leadership and motivation session on creating a legacy from James and Chris Gowans who played at Central Districts, playing in 9 premierships from 12 seasons. This followed a trip back out to Alberton Oval to watch the Power in an intra club practise game. The challenge was for us to identify what the players were supposed to be doing from the session the day before on game plan with Aaron Greaves. It was pleasing to see it come to life, with Port aspiring for a plus 90% compliance to the game plan. After that it was back to Grange for some dinner, followed by our final session with Dave Ryan on concept of relationship building and connection.

Up early to catch a flight back to Melbourne, all the lads were tired but I’m sure full of great experiences and I’m sure this trip we’ll look back on later on in the year as a cornerstone.

Go Saints – Keasty