We hear it every year – AFL clubs that have had a tough preseason, certain players are flying and the teams are ready for a big year.
We get drawn into believing it, and these comments help pick our fantasy teams and create hope for the new year.
But do we really believe it? I guess it depends on who says it. What about when Travis Boak says it?
Port Adelaide start the 2015 preseason with expectation, and with expectation comes hard-work.
Ken Hinkley knows the football community expects results in 2015, he won’t admit it but he knows that anything less than a preliminary final will be seen as a failure. So when Travis Boak says in Dubai that the running he’s doing is the hardest he’s ever done, you believe it.
Make no mistake, this year is Port Adelaide’s most important year since the David Koch-KeithThomas inception. When Thomas took the reigns in 2012, he and David Koch devised a three-year plan – to make Port Adelaide a profitable football club by 2015.
The on-field success has been building, but the off-field success is yet to be seen. Next year Port supporters expect the football club to be back in the black.
Expectation is something Port Adelaide hasn’t had to deal with since 2008. They’ve been a shambles as a football club in the past, but they’re not now. They walk into the 2015 season with the weight of expectation firmly placed on their shoulders.
Port transformed the AFL landscape in 2014 with their game day experience, their fitness levels and their supporter interaction. They’ve become the benchmark for any team who want to get back to the top quickly.
How they deal with the expectation will define their season, most see the recruitment of Paddy Ryder as the missing link in their premiership tilt, and although the Power will never admit it they believe it to.
While the word expectation will be used sparingly by the football club, as by definition it refers to the future, the word consolidation though, will be heard excessively. Port Adelaide believes they’re where they need to be as a football team, they just need to stay there and consolidate.
Except it’s hard to believe it’s all about consolidation when Travis Boak says in Dubai it’s the hardest running he’s ever done. That’s called expectation and Port Adelaide will be covered in it next year.
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