Port Adelaide

Tres disappointment.

port loss

There’s two different ways to lose: the first is when you have one of those nothing seasons where wins are few and far between and losses become the norm. You’ll be disappointed to get done but hey, you’re used to it by now. The second way is when you’re carrying the weight of immensely high expectations and are completely crushed by them when your team comes undone.

Let me assure you, it’s the latter that really hurts.

It’s an exquisite kind of torture when all your family support the one AFL club and you are the only one who doesn’t, then their team beats yours. Being born and bred in NSW I have a lot of love for the Syney Swans except for one or two days a year when I find them (and my family) utterly intolerable. It’s been especially difficult given Sydney have proven themselves to be something of a bogey team for Port Adelaide and regardless of our respective fortunes, they always seem to beat us. I’ve gotten used to copping a hammering from my brothers in particular but let me promise you that it never stops hurting. Or being really fucking annoying.

Tonight’s 48-point loss was bitterly disappointing for a few reasons. The first is those expectations I mentioned and the fact Port have been considered almost THE premiership contender for this season. To start the year 0-2 isn’t what we wanted or expected. I kinda thought we’d have two wins under our belt by now and be the talk of the town. The second is that tonight was our first game at home at Adelaide Oval and clearly we hoped our vocal supporters would play the role of the 19th man and cheer us through to a win.

It’s also hard to watch your team lose by making the exact same mistakes they made during the last loss. Against Fremantle Port kept repeatedly kicking to opposition players alone and making some really poor decisions with the ball that resulted in turnovers. We keep trying to consistently play that awesome running game we can do so well, but it’s almost like the players don’t know how to get the ball up the ground if it’s not a running handball under pressure. I’d like Port to be a bit calmer and consider their options a little more.

Tonight again highlighted to me that Ryder isn’t the great saviour we probably expected him to be and that we really really really miss Lobbe. If we could have a team full of Robbie Grays and then Boaky as captain, we’d be laughing. Gray is just such a class act and ye olde cliché “silky skills” really applies. Trengove and Carlisle stood up at the back, while Monfries looked dangerous up front. Pittard had a solid game and made up for his ridiculous mistake last week. I thought all round there’s a lot of room for improvement so hopefully the players will take note and start refining.

I don’t want to say much re the Swans except it was satisfying to see Hanneberry get belted and Gary Rohan’s red hair really shits me.

In the end, the only thing that kept me watching was that tiny pilot light of hope that we’d get our act together and start kicking a few goals, enough to pull together a gutsy come-from-behind win. That and the fact the camera kept focusing on a hot and sweaty Travis Boak (that man is my everything). Watching our beloved captain hurl his mouthguard on the ground in disgust after the final siren was a good sign I think and hopefully he can lift us for round three.

Next week is the Kangaroos in Melbourne and I’ll be heading along to Etihad Stadium on Saturday night. I fucking hate North and their “Shinboner Spirit” bullshit with the power of a thousand suns so fingers crossed we can notch up win one. Otherwise the weight of that unlived up to expectation is going to keep crushing me.

Season 2015.

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I just don’t think I can do this again.

When I was younger I was an absolute footy tragic. I would live, breathe and bleed for my team each week without fail. I kept scrapbooks of meticulously cut out newspaper articles and I recorded games on copious amounts of VHS tapes so I could watch them over and over (and over) again.

Then I grew up and calmed down – slightly. I was still as heavily invested in my team but the format changed. I bought club memberships and I travelled around the country watching games. When I resigned from my job at The Canberra Times my colleagues got me a Port Adelaide jumper as a farewell gift. DVDs replaced the tapes.

Between about 2009 and mid 2013 I lost my way. Port Adelaide were generally doing terribly and I’m ashamed to say I barely maintained any interest in their fortunes. I went to a token few rugby union games here in Melbourne. The only rugby league news I ever got was from my brother’s Facebook statuses. I’ve never given a shit about soccer. Instead I just filled up my life with other stuff, only engaging with sport on the rarest of occasions. For someone whose life had been utterly filled by it for so long this was something new.

And now I’m back. Totally, utterly and completely back. To AFL anyway.

It started at the end of 2013 when Port made the finals and I went to see both of them at the MCG. I remember at the start of that season when the Power won a heap of games and were sitting close to first, screenshotting the ladder and circling Port and Hawthorn’s positions then sending it to my Hawks mad mate. “Me. You. Suck it”, I scrawled on there. I could never quite believe it though – it felt surreal to be anything close to successful again. So when those finals rolled around I went and it felt like a novelty in some ways, especially when we won the one against Collingwood. At that point I reckon it was the first Port game I’d been to in nearly four years. The second one I went to with my best friend, a Cats fan, and we nearly did them – our last quarter we ran out of steam and Geelong went into a prelim.

Last year felt good but there was still some distance between me and footy. I was scared that 2013 was going to be a blip, that I’d be lured into false hopes and cruelly let down again. Only it didn’t quite pan out that way and despite my reticence I found myself sitting at the MCG again in September. I hadn’t been to any games through the year but I’d kept a much closer eye on things and I could sense my blood starting to fizz again with the love of football. A friend took me as her plus one to a corporate event and I reckon I drank four nervous glasses of champagne in quick succession when we arrived. As a Bombers fan she had a soft spot for Wanganeen so was prepared to back us in against the Hawks and even wore a Port scarf for me (I repaid the favour by giving her my vintage one from when Gav actually still played).

Three points that day. Three fucking points. That’s what kept us out of a grand final. But I knew, I just knew, that footy and I were back together so the long wait until the 2015 season started began.

It’s a cruel thing to have to wait until the second last game of the first round to see your team play. I’ve monitored the club countdowns on social media and felt the excitement starting to build. Everyone has such high expectations for Port Adelaide this year, it’s almost impossible not to get swept up in the excitement and romance of it all. I am a club member again, something I felt they deserved from me.

All day today I have felt the nerves and excitement starting to build. Because I don’t have Foxtel I went to a local hotel to watch it and as I sat down with my beer and chicken parma, I remembered: “this is what it’s like.” That feeling of butterflies in your stomach. Wanting to vomit. Your heart beating at triple time. Hands shaking when they lift the glass for every sip.

“I just can’t do this again,” I thought.

I’d forgotten what a complete emotional investment football is so much of the time. How you have to learn to live with that churning in your gut for hours on game day. My right hand fingernails digging into my left hand knuckles for two-and-a-half hours every weekend until they are red raw. The exhilaration and the pain and the disappointment and the jubilation and the satisfaction. I’d forgotten all of it until I was actually back there in that moment again.

Fremantle had us by seven points tonight but I maintain it was a game we lost rather than one they won. Our decision making was poor and our kicking was terrible at times, which took the pressure off and let them into the game. (Jasper’s fucking play on bounce. Jesus.) Paddy didn’t look as good as I expected and we missed Lobbe in the ruck I thought. On the plus side, I reckon Polec, Trengove and Gray really stood out and our tackling overall was ferocious. It’s always disappointing to lead at every change and then get done in the end however I know that losing the first game of the season doesn’t mean it’s all over. We have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get ready to take on Sydney next week.

Which means it looks like I am doing this again after all. Wish me luck.

 

 

Port Adelaide proud.

MCG

I wrote this after Port Adelaide lost the 2014 preliminary final to Hawthorn by three points at the MCG, a game I attended. It’s been a big two years for the club and supporters definitely have something to get excited about. However losing a prelim always aches and I was feel pretty down for the next couple of days – writing definitely helps.

One of the questions I get asked fairly often is why do I barrack for Port Adelaide. I’m not South Australian; in fact, I’ve only been to Adelaide three times in my life. I grew up in country NSW in a family that supported rugby league teams and played rugby union. AFL never even factored in our lives until the Sydney Swans made the 1996 grand final and we started to show an interest.

The reason I support Port Adelaide is simple: I just do.

I’m honestly not entirely sure how it came to be. They were the new team in the competition in 1997 and for some reason I picked them. I picked them over the team that represents my people and my home state, I picked them barely knowing a single player, I picked them with no SANFL Port Adelaide Magpies background. I think a friend at the time had shown some interest in them and I simply went along for the ride – new team, new football supporter.

It’s probably fair to say that when people pick a team to support in any football code, they choose the one with qualities they identify most with. They want to feel like a winner so they choose a team with recent success, they feel like an underdog so they choose the battlers, for bravery and toughness they might find a team with a player who signifies this. Even those who choose a team based on family loyalties or physical location are choosing to be part of something greater than themselves, something that unites them with the people they love best.

Yesterday I watched my team – the team I have chosen – lose by three points in a preliminary final. The same team that two years ago finished second last on the ladder, broke and hopeless. The team that sacked it’s coach mid-season and had to cover the sea of empty seats at home grounds with teal coloured tarps to disguise the lack of interest. The team that was in such financial strife it seemed hard to believe it could keep going. The team that lost one of their own in a devastating incident on an end of season trip.

Somehow, at their very lowest point, Port Adelaide found a reason to keep fighting. They picked a coach who was effectively the last man standing, a man who had to be convinced to even apply for the job. They found an underrated captain who could lead by example. They propped up their young list with recycled players that found a niche in a  new home. And they recruited a president who could reinvigorate supporters’ love for the silver, teal and black and white.

There is a massive amount of belief both in and at the Port Adelaide Football Club these days. It’s that kind of belief that in two years has taken us from that spot at the bottom of the ladder to effectively finishing third this season. And with one of the youngest lists in the competition you can only feel that things are going to get better and better for us. Our self belief – for both players and fans – is back with a vengeance.

Three points. Three fucking points. But from 30-points down mid-way through the final quarter I watched my boys give absolutely everything they could out there on the MCG. I watched them attack the game and kick goal after goal until the final siren put an end to their efforts. It absolutely hurts to lose and so it should but I couldn’t be prouder of their efforts. We are a team that could walk off that ground with our heads held high knowing that on any given day, our best is going to be enough.

I cannot wait for 2015. Yes We Ken indeed.

What Hinkley, Boak, Koch, Thomas and everyone else at Port Adelaide has achieved in just two years has been unbelievable. They’ve united the club and it’s supporters, created a brilliant new home for us in Adelaide Oval and reinvigorated our spirit. The right people at exactly the right time.

I last watched Port Adelaide lose a preliminary final in 2003 to Collingwood and I went to the toilets and cried. Last night there were a few tears as well, especially when my family called me. Today a friend called me to check I was still going to an event we had on today and she asked how I was going. “Great,” I said. “Don’t lie,” she replied, “I saw the game yesterday.” “OK then, shithouse.” And I meant it. Today I have been sad in that kind of way you feel on the day after your birthday or the 27 December. All the fun and excitement is over for another year.

One of Port Adelaide’s mottos is ‘We never give up’. And we haven’t. We didn’t give up at any stage during this finals campaign, fighting as long and hard as we could against Fremantle and Hawthorn. We didn’t give up after simply making the finals last year, when no one respected us enough to believe we could do it again this season. We didn’t give up when our club was at its lowest point ever – no coach, no money, no support, no hope. Instead we chose to collectively believe, a decision that has infinitely paid dividends.

When we unite to sing Never Tear Us Apart we mean it.

Respect. Pride. Determination. Courage. Commitment. Belief. If I was picking a team today I’d choose one that had all those qualities.

Lucky I already do. And that’s the reason I support Port Adelaide.

#weareportadelaide

Welcome.

Is there anything more frustrating than hearing someone say, “it’s just a game”?

Because for many of us, it is something far greater and more precious about that. We live it and breathe it and study it and feel it like almost nothing else. Your team wins and you’re the king of the world – lose and it’s a week of heartache and ribbing from friends and colleagues (and family if you’re truly unlucky).

I’ve started this blog because there are few things I like to talk about more than AFL and I have some really great friends. I also wanted a space to record essays, thoughts or photographs about our great game. It’s slightly ironic that my first post comes around six hours after the 2014 grand final has been played but hey, timing isn’t everything. My aim over summer and into next year will be to publish some of my friends’ observations about football and my own thoughts on what’s happening in the AFL. My thinking at this point is to publish either pieces my friends have written themselves (short or long) or first person style interviews, but I’ll see how I progress.

I also wanted to have an online space around AFL that wasn’t the arguing idiocy that forums can devolve into, the incredible bias of Facebook pages, Supercoach anything, or purely match review style pieces. I want posts that are interesting to read on a theme or issue and I’m always infinitely keen to hear other people’s opinions when they’re delivered in a thoughtful manner.

Some quick information abut me – my name is Natalie, I live in Melbourne and I’m a Port Adelaide supporter. A proud Port Adelaide supporter, I should say. I’m also the black sheep of my family as they all follow the Sydney Swans, though consequently I do hold the Bloods very close to my heart as well. I grew up in country NSW watching rugby league and rugby union and we were horrified at the idea of this “aerial ping pong” business until Sydney made the grand final in 1996 – first game I ever watched was the Brisbane Bears v Essendon final that year while I was studying for my HSC. I decided to go with the new team Port Adelaide in 1997 and the rest, as they say, is history.

In that almost 20 years since I’ve seen my team finish minor premiers then lose preliminary finals. I’ve seen them win a grand final and then leave the ground in tears when they’ve lost one. I’ve been through four coaches and god knows how many players. I’ve been a paid up member and a somewhat lapsed and disillusioned fan. I’ve seen them play in nearly every state at almost every AFL ground. And I’ve cried and I’ve cheered and I’ve laughed and I’ve dug my nails in so hard I’ve drawn blood.

Because in every way, with no doubt about it, it is absolutely “more than a game.”