Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley leapt to the defence of Dan Houston’s character after the Power star put his season at risk with a bone-jarring Showdown bump that left Adelaide’s Izak Rankine with a concussion.
Port locked up a top-four spot with a hard-fought 22-point win over the Crows on Saturday night, but Houston’s participation in his side’s finals campaign hinges on the Match Review Officer’s assessment of the sickening third-quarter hit that knocked Rankine out of the game.
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“To comment on that would be unfair,” Hinkley replied when asked for his own assessment of the incident.
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“Our thoughts are with Izak, first and foremost, hopefully he’s ok.
“Dan is a very, very fair footballer … they are split-second decisions, right or wrong, and we’ll let the people make those decisions that need to make them.
“I think once he cools down there will be a moment (to reflect).
“He’s a really fair player, he’s an outstanding person, anyone who’s been involved in those situations … they know what’s going on.
“They feel the consequence of what’s happened, so he’ll wait and see what’s delivered to him and he’ll move on from there.
“He’s a really good person, I can’t say that enough, and I know people will say that they don’t care, but I do.”
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Furious Adelaide players remonstrated with Houston in a fiery melee after the bump, with the Crows failing to regain their focus on the game with ill-disciplined acts proving costly as Port slammed through five unanswered goals.
“It was obviously pretty hostile, but all Showdowns are hostile,” Showdown Medal winner Zak Butters said of the spiteful aftermath.
“We were just trying to create some calmness in a pretty chaotic situation.
“I was really proud of the boys with the way that they handled it … we stuck to our task, we were able to stay calm and execute.
“My thoughts are with Izak, obviously you don’t want to see any player deal with that.
“Dan is a valued team member and I love playing with him.
“If it was Dan or any of my other teammates I would throw my arms around him and have his back.
“I thought we really rallied behind him and made him feel pretty comfortable out there in a tough situation for him.”
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Josh Rachele was booed whenever he went near the ball after his tongue-in-cheek jibe about Port fans not having many teeth mid-week, but Hinkley maintained the banter didn’t affect his side’s preparation.
“Theatre’s okay, but the reality for us is we had to stay inside the fence, we didn’t need to worry about anything else,” he said.
“Our whole week was really disciplined in just sticking to what we’ve done really well.
“We’ve been in pretty solid form, we’ve had to work really hard to get some wins, and this was no different.
“It didn’t matter what else had gone on … we spent our whole week worrying about the opposition’s quality and what we needed to do to blunt that.”
Ruckman Jordon Sweet will be monitored after he hyperextended his right elbow in a gruesome clash, while Lachie Jones was subbed out with Achilles soreness and will also need to prove his fitness to take on Fremantle in Perth in the home-and-away season finale.
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Elsewhere, Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks urged his players to learn to control their emotions after Houston’s horror bump.
“Some of our guys are still understanding when composure is needed,” Nicks said.
“The emotion is high, but then you’ve got to knuckle down and play footy.
“Your timing of when those niggles start is important, so a few of our guys will learn from that.
“That was the conversation we had as a group, led by our captain.
“He just asked the group a question about ‘At what point are we going to get this right?’ because we end up shooting ourselves in the foot from that moment on.
“We did ourselves no favours.
“We weren’t quite able to contain ourselves.
“It was going back and forth a little and in those moments the umpires are going to do whatever they can to control that.
“We were caught reacting or getting it wrong in the wrong parts of the ground.
“The game changed pretty quickly.”
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Rankine has entered AFL concussion protocols and will miss Adelaide’s 2024 season finale against the Swans in Sydney.
“He’s up and about, his and welfare is our priority now, just making sure he’s okay and he is,” Nicks said of Rankine post-match.
“He’s up and about, but we’ll keep a close eye on how he’s going.”
Adelaide young gun Josh Rachele added a touch of spice to the Showdown build-up with his jibe about Port fans not having many teeth and followed it up by pointing to his own pearly whites after a superb second-quarter goal.
“It’s the theatre of Showdown,” Nicks replied when asked if he objected to Rachele’s bold public statements.
“A night like tonight has got everything and part of that is the theatre, part is the adrenaline running through people’s bodies.
“Emotions are high.
“It’s a part of footy … if we stamp that out we become robots.
“But we can get carried away at times.”
Adelaide will finish a disappointing campaign in 15th spot on the ladder regardless of what happens in Sydney.
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