2023 Best 23s: Why this forgotten Port speed demon could save Ken Hinkley's job

The countdown to Round 1, 2023 has officially begun – so throughout January, I’ll be looking at all 18 AFL clubs and doing my best to put together an optimum team for the new year.

I’ll take injuries and suspensions into account, but this won’t be a predicted team for Round 1 – think of it more as a guide to what your team’s best 23 (the 22 starting players plus the new unrestricted substitute) could look like as the year unfolds.

Today, we’ll be discussing one of 2022’s major disappointments, Port Adelaide. Check out the links below if your team has already been done.

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It’s easy to blame the Power’s absence from the finals last year on their 0-5 start, but the reality is even after that, they were hardly an opponent that inspired fear. They loved beating up on ordinary teams, with half their 10 wins coming by 55 points or more against bottom-six opposition, but against quality opposition or in tight games, they were found wanting again and again.

Ken Hinkley and co. haven’t sat on their hands in the off-season, however: they’ve acquired a long-term midfield superstar in Jason Horne-Francis, plus their prime trade target in Junior Rioli. On paper at least, not much has changed from the side that played consecutive home preliminary finals in 2020 and 2021, and a whole group of young guns are either close to reaching their peak, or have already arrived there.

Plus, if you’re one of those people who believe percentage is a better indicator of quality than premiership points, Port’s mark of 110.3 puts them ahead of two top-eight sides last year, including a preliminary finalist in Collingwood.

Nevertheless, this is a crucial year for Port, and especially for Hinkley. It’s hard to see him surviving another season without finals, and the reality is most coaches don’t last a decade at the helm without a premiership. Entering the final year of his contract, another sluggish start could easily prove immediately fatal to his career.

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Defenders

On numbers alone, Port’s defence isn’t a problem. They conceded the fifth-fewest points in last year’s home-and-away season, with the four ahead of them – Melbourne, Fremantle, Geelong and Sydney – finishing in the top five.

It’s a sign of Hinkley’s quality as a coach that he has devised a defensive structure that, with the odd exception, is able to punch above its weight, specifically in the height department. None of Tom Jonas, Aliir Aliir, Trent McKenzie and Tom Clurey are big, powerful backs, yet they don’t often get monstered by opposition talls.

Still, it was significantly more leaky than in 2021, when they had the AFL’s third-best defence: their home-and-away average points against lifted from 68 points a game to over 74. That might not sound like much, but considering Port went 2-7 in 2022 in games decided by two goals or less and 5-0 in 2021, that extra goal a game can definitely turn an overachiever one year into an underachiever the next.

Clurey, too, had the most average contested defensive losses per game last year of any regular defender, with 1.7 per game; while McKenzie sits at 1.4, also in the bottom five. That’s why it’s imperative new draftee Tom McCallum gets game time while Jonas and Aliir are still around to hold the fort.

McCallum isn’t a big body either, but he has exceptional closing speed and can play on either talls or smalls. There’s real upside to him, and it’s vital the Power unearth a long term key defender sooner or later. The 18-year old (and the far rawer Kyle Marshall if they really get desperate) should be given at least a taste, and probably more, of senior footy in 2023.

As for the smalls, Ryan Burton‘s body finally held up for him in 2022, leading the Power in rebounds 50s and impressing with his neat ball use and cool head. He’d be an outside choice given he’s not in the leadership group, but it wouldn’t surprise me either to see him named Port’s next captain once Jonas retires or steps down.

After an All-Australian nod in 2020, Darcy Byrne-Jones has gone backwards in the last two years, and it’s imperative he returns to his best. He gets enough of the ball, but part of his issue has been that in Burton and Dan Houston, there are better ball-users now in Port’s defensive 50, forcing him into more of a lockdown role.

If one of them, perhaps a Riley Bonner, moves further up the ground, it could enable Byrne-Jones to have more of an impact, take the kick-outs and start more possession chains than he currently does. He’ll need to, as well, because the likes of Lachie Jones and Jase Burgoyne are coming for his spot, and offer more defensively in strength (Jones) and speed (Burgoyne) than he does.

Speaking of Houston, he excelled across half-back and the wing last year, providing an outlet option coming out of defence while also ranking second at the club behind Aliir Aliir for intercept marks. A lot of players at Port get underrated, and he’s the pick of the bunch in my view.

Tom Hawkins marks in front of Tom Clurey. (Photo by James Elsby/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Midfielders

The Power midfield has undergone a transition over the last few years, with the veterans spending less and less time in the engine room. Of Port’s first choice centre bounce group in 2020, only Ollie Wines remains a central presence: Travis Boak spent plenty of time at half-forward, and Tom Rockliff and Robbie Gray have both retired.

This is Connor Rozee‘s midfield now, to be sure. Wines won a Brownlow Medal in 2021 as an outstanding accumulator and clearance king who used it more and better by foot than Patrick Cripps or Clayton Oliver, but Rozee’s exceptional 2022 meant he was less required to be everything in there.

Rozee’s breakaway pace, clean skills and ability to hit the scoreboard are a dangerous combination, and were rewarded with a maiden All-Australian gong last year. He doesn’t start too many chains, but he’s the guy the likes of Wines, Boak and Willem Drew want the ball with to send inside 50.

Rozee is now a permanent member of the on-ball brigade; will Zak Butters follow suit? Across the last two years, he has seemed on the cusp of his own breakout before injury has struck at inopportune times. Boak still attended 61 per cent of Port’s centre bounces last year, with Butters at just 38 per cent.

Butters goes harder at the ball than Rozee, and is almost as quick. He’ll be a first-choice midfielder sooner or later, with the only question to consider whether a 34-year old Boak (who, incidentally, has played his best footy since turning 30) is still a lock in the midfield rotation ahead of him.

Jason Horne-Francis will also surely get on-ball opportunities as well: his utter dominance in the SANFL as a junior wasn’t fully harnessed in his season at North Melbourne, when he spent plenty of his time across half-forward. No doubt he’ll be made to earn that plum role, but with Butters and Rozee not quite fully developed just yet, a more widespread rotation of on-ballers than other teams have will probably be required.

And JHF, if unleashed on the ball in bursts, could be lethal. An ominous mix of inside and outside talents as a junior, he wins his own ball, kicks brilliantly, and impacts the scoreboard. Now back at home after an acrimonious start to his AFL career, he’ll surely have an easier time excelling at Port than at a Kangaroos side that was unquestionably horrible.

The big vacancy on Port’s list now is on the wing, with Karl Amon jumping ship to Hawthorn. The Power, though, have no shortage of outside players, even if none are as natural ball-winners as Amon was.

There’s an opportunity here for Xavier Duursma to finally entrench himself in the best 22. Amon’s resurgence across the last three seasons effectively pushed Duursma out of the wing role he was so adept at as a junior, and more into the forward line where he struggled to consistently hit the scoreboard.

Drafted in the same year as Rozee and Butters, he was arguably the most impressive of the trio out of the blocks in 2019, but has since fallen well behind. There’s now no one in the way of him becoming an elite AFL talent… except, of course, himself.

As for the other wing, the boring choice is one of Riley Bonner and Miles Bergman. I’d love to see Bonner used further up the ground: his kicking is usually sound but he is capable of the odd turnover that makes fans pull their hair out, especially in defence. Hinkley trusted him enough to give him kick-out responsibilities for much of the year, and as an outside runner he’s a competent ball-winner who would surely relish escaping a logjam of promising small defenders Port have at their disposal.

But the risky, and better, choice would be to finally see what Josh Sinn has as a top-level footballer. Pick 12 in 2021, Sinn’s first season at AFL level was derailed by injury and he managed just the one game; but his attributes are pretty much a list of traits that make for an ideal wingman.

Sinn’s left foot could best be described as ‘raking’, and while he does have a tendency to blaze, I’d argue getting the ball inside attack 50 to Port’s plethora of talls might be a better option than the slow play that proved so inadequate early in 2022. Most importantly, he has something Amon never had, and something that Port, despite having plenty of players capable of it in recent seasons, have seldom pulled off: genuine, line-breaking pace.

If he steers clear of injury, it would be foolish to not play him.

Josh Sinn in action. (Photo by Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Hinkley’s biggest question might be what he does with his ruckmen. Scott Lycett‘s absence with a shoulder issue for most of last year was a disaster at first, but by the end of the year the Power had found a working solution. In the back half of the season, Jeremy Finlayson was, incredibly, the top ruck in the game according to the AFL’s official player ratings.

Essentially content to force a draw at ruck contests, Finlayson’s mobility was basically unmatched around the AFL among big men: with Charlie Dixon a handy backup with the size and strength to match most opposition rucks, it had the double effect of giving Port a second midfielder around the ball, while also keeping Dixon involved in the game.

Finlayson managed just six hitouts per game last year, yet finished with 20 disposals or more in five of Port’s last seven games. Importantly, though, it didn’t stop Port ranking fifth for the season for average clearances. It also meant the Power could play Dixon, Todd Marshall and Mitch Georgiades in attack without becoming too top-heavy, with Marshall enjoying a career-best season and Georgiades a huge part of the club’s future. More on them later.

With Lycett fit, it would be a hugely bold move to continue picking a non-ruckman like Finlayson in that role. Last year, it was a necessity, where this year, it would be a choice. But you can’t argue with its results, and for the start of the year at least, Finlayson has earned first crack at seeing whether his remarkable 2022 was a fluke or not.

Forwards

The Power’s forward line was their greatest headache in 2022; specifically, at ground level.

While Marshall broke out as a leading second tall, and Georgiades showed great signs despite some troubling inaccuracy in front of the big sticks, the Power’s crumbing options when the ball hit the ground were depleted significantly last year.

Across their 2020 and 2021 qualifying final wins over Geelong, players smaller than 190 centimetres kicked 16 of their 21 goals. Orazio Fantasia was crucial with four in 2021, while Steven Motlop (three and two) and Robbie Gray also had sizeable impact.

Motlop and Gray are now retired, while Fantasia’s future now seems likely to be hampered by injury. Connor Rozee, too, is now a fully fledged midfielder, and Zak Butters on the path to joining him. So desperate were Port for options that they even tried, and for large parts succeeded, in turning Sam Powell-Pepper into a pressure goalsneak; but a genuine master of his craft is required to replace Motlop and especially Gray.

Little wonder, then, that the Power targeted Junior Rioli so heavily.

A smart, nimble goalsneak with a nose for the big sticks and capable of providing elite tackling pressure, he’s a much-needed injection of speed and class in attacking 50 for the Power. But in order to use him effectively, they will have to speed up their ball movement north of the ball – too many times in 2022 did a stagnant build-up enable their opposition to build numbers behind the ball and make scoring all but impossible, most obviously against Hawthorn in Round 2.

Marshall benefitted enormously from the Power’s improvement post-Round 5, kicking 39 goals in 16 games compared to six in five, including three goalless matches, beforehand. Sharp overhead, getting stronger by the year, quick on the lead and deadly in front of goal, Marshall will probably always need a Charlie Dixon type to handle the true monsters, but as a second lead-up, Jack Gunston-style tall he’s got huge potential.

In Dixon, Marshall and Georgiades, the Power have their pillars sorted for the next few years, and an eye-catching future star in Thomas Scully to develop to replace Dixon in the mid-distant future. Expect Dixon to continue spending time in the ruck, giving more opportunities to the younger duo to take ownership of the forward line.

One interesting option to consider is Kane Farrell. He’s been deployed in a number of roles across his short career to date, most recently across the half-back line in late 2022. The thing is, Port have so many options in that position, and while his exceptional, penetrating kicking would make him an asset, there are other areas his skills can be put to better use.

Like, say, as a roaming half-forward, offering lead-up options for oncoming midfielders or defenders, and then providing that last kick inside 50. Farrell doesn’t win a heap of his own ball, though that move to defence did see him have it in his hands more often, but I can’t think of many better options at the Power to be driving the ball to the true forwards.

(Photo by Jono Searle/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)

Port Adelaide Best 23 2023

Backs: Ryan Burton, Tom Jonas (c), Tom McCallum

Half-backs: Dan Houston, Aliir Aliir, Darcy Byrne-Jones

Centres: Josh Sinn, Ollie Wines, Xavier Duursma

Followers: Jeremy Finlayson, Connor Rozee, Zak Butters

Half-forwards: Junior Rioli, Todd Marshall, Jason Horne-Francis

Forwards: Sam Powell-Pepper, Charlie Dixon, Mitch Georgiades

Interchange: Travis Boak, Riley Bonner, Kane Farrell, Lachie Jones

Substitute: Jase Burgoyne

Emergencies: Willem Drew, Orazio Fantasia, Scott Lycett

^{* in doubt for Round 1 with knee injury}