AFL Grand Final
Preview – Port Adelaide vs Brisbane
RealFooty.com, Adelaide
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Figure 1: Port Adeliade Power the the MCG in the preliminary final |
Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams is confident his
side can be the one to stop the Brisbane Lions' three-year reign as premiers,
saying Port's appearance in the grand final on Saturday will be the culmination
of four years' preparation and hard work.
Defending his players' celebratory mood immediately
after last week's preliminary final, Williams said the club had been under
unbearable pressure and expectation since its first serious tilt at the finals
in 2001.
And now that it had two finals wins under its belt,
Port Adelaide was ready to go out and play "relaxed" and attacking
football in the grand final.
"You might think we've been building up to this
for a week," Williams said. "We reckon we've been building up for
four years. We haven't played the game and we're not going to play it until
Saturday afternoon, so we're going to be relaxed and we're going to enjoy
tonight (at training)."
"We've had some outstanding games against
Brisbane over the years . . . Some of the greatest games of the last four years
have been Port v Brisbane - real tight finishes," he said.
Ruckman Brendon Lade remains Port's only fitness
concern after missing training on Monday and retiring prematurely from a
45-minute session late yesterday. Lade's absence on Monday was dismissed as
general soreness - a common ailment at Alberton - but there were unofficial
suggestions he had back spasms.
He was also reported to have had a private run
yesterday morning, which could have explained his early departure from Port's
light workout later, held in drizzling rain and in front of an enthusiastic
crowd of at least 6000.
More than 2000 kilometers away in Brisbane, Jonathan
Brown, the Lions' "invisible man", is maintaining an around-the-clock
medical regime in a bid to minimize the impact of a jarred knee in the grand
final.
In a repeat of the intrigue that surrounded Nigel
Lappin before he took a broken rib into last year's premiership decider, Brown
was unsighted at training yesterday. Instead, he had physiotherapy,
hydrotherapy and hyperbaric chamber treatment indoors.
Brown, nursing a sore knee after a preliminary-final
collision with Geelong's Darren Milburn, has been stationed almost permanently
this week at the Gabba, where the Lions have a medical clinic, a 25-metre lap
pool and a hyperbaric chamber.
Craig McRae, whose hamstring soreness is the Lions'
other injury concern, made a fleeting appearance before training.
He completed a series of three-quarter-pace
run-throughs with physiotherapist Peter Stanton but did not join the team
session.
The retiring McRae, who turned 31 yesterday, left
the track smiling in a pointer to the fact that he should get the opportunity
to close his 10-year AFL career with a fourth premiership.
If there is any doubt, it will remain until at least
tomorrow afternoon, when the Lions will have their final hitout at the Albert
Ground. But expectations are that Brown and McRae will play.
Certainly, both will be named tonight in a side that
has only one question to answer - who will replace the injured Shaun Hart? It
will be either Darryl White or 2003 premiership player Ashley McGrath.
The Lions are expected to take a 25-man squad to
Melbourne, consisting of White, McGrath, Joel MacDonald, Anthony Corrie and the
21 fit players from the preliminary final. - with Peter Blucher