Expert
The Port Adelaide Power will say goodbye to club legend Kane Cornes today as he plays his 300th and final game against the Richmond Tigers at Adelaide Oval. Join The Roar for live scores and coverage from 4.40pm AEST.
Cornes has been one of the Power’s champion players in their history at AFL level. His achievements include four club best and fairest awards, two All Australian selections, and being a part of Port Adelaide’s first AFL premiership team along with his brother, Chad.
Already the Power’s club games record holder at AFL level, Cornes will become the first man to play 300 AFL games for Port Adelaide – and just the 69th in AFL/VFL history – when he runs out on the field today.
The Power will be desperate to pay tribute to arguably their club’s most accomplished player, but will need to snap a bad fortnight of form to do so.
Their loss to West Coast two weeks ago at this ground was some poor form but it was their capitulation to Brisbane last week on the road that really has supporters concerned.
The Power started slow and finished just as slowly against the Lions, never really looking to put themselves into a game that they were almost unanimously expected to win.
Richmond would dearly love to spoil Cornes’ party. Not only would it mean two wins in a row after a hard-fought victory over Collingwood last week, but it would be a very satisfying response to their embarrassment at this same ground in last year’s finals series.
All but the most ardent of Tigers fans will have blocked last year’s 57-point drubbing out of their memories – but you can expect to see some raucous celebration and raging schadenfreude if the Tigers get up today.
Port’s efforts today will be boosted by the return of young gun Ollie Wines who they have sorely missed over the past few weeks.
Prediction
With Ollie Wines back and the Power sensing the big occasion, they have every reason to come good on their obvious talent today and get what really should be a comfortable win.
If they can’t get the job done under these circumstances, there’ll be some very serious questions asked of them next week.
Port Adelaide by 24 points.
Join The Roar for live scores and coverage from 4.10pm local time, 4.40pm AEST.