‘Did not go down well’: Power great speaks after player’s post sparks board election drama
Port Adelaide premiership captain Warren Tredrea has weighed in after drama threatened to engulf Port Adelaide’s board election, with he and club great Bruce Abernethy at its centre.
Tredrea is locked in battle with SANFL legend Abernethy for a spot on the club’s board of directors, with Power members currently in the midst of the polling period.
Power defender Ryan Burton – who is in a relationship with Abernethy’s daughter Brie – recently shared Abernethy’s pitch to voters via his Instagram account, with 300-gamer Kane Cornes saying Tredrea was angry with the club over Burton’s involvement.
“It did not go down well with Warren. I’m led to believe Warren rang the club really angrily and demanded an apology from the football club and from Ryan for sharing Bruce Abernethy’s (letter), remembering he’s the father of Ryan’s partner,” Tredrea’s premiership teammate Kane Cornes said on SEN Breakfast.
“He (Burton) is in a very awkward position.”
While Burton has since apologised via social media, Cornes said Tredrea wanted a “further apology from the club”.
The premiership captain has clarified he has since spoken to Burton and sympathised with the defender, stressing he has never sought an apology from him.
“Given the public interest surrounding what has become a highly publicized Members’ election to the Port Adelaide Football Club’s Board of Directors, it is imperative that the process remain impartial and independent to ensure a fair and just contest,” Tredrea wrote on X on Thursday.
“I have addressed this matter with Ryan Burton personally, and sympathise and understand his predicament. Let it be known I never sought an apology from Ryan personally, and categorically deny any report that suggests otherwise.
“I have no further comment in relation to the matter and look forward to an exciting season ahead for our Club celebrating the 20th anniversary of its inaugural AFL Premiership in 2004.”
The Power has said it has no set policy on players or staff supporting candidates.
A three-year appointment to the board will be handed to the successful candidate, with results expected next week at the club’s annual general meeting.
Abernethy has bristled at suggestions he is running as part of a club push to stop Tredrea from winning.
Tredrea’s dissatisfaction with current coach Ken Hinkley was made well known by the premiership captain at the start of the 2023 season, which saw the Power finish in the top four but exit the finals in straight sets.
Both candidates have high-profile support.
Tredrea played 255 games for the Power and was an eight-time leading goalkicker and four-time best and fairest.
Abernethy was a seven-time premiership player for the Power and the 1987 best and fairest.
‘My god’: Silver lining amid Tigers ‘refresh’ as club looks to avoid 14-year AFL first
It’s a markedly different feel for Richmond ahead of the 2024 season than it was in 2023.
Rewind 12 months and there was no shortage of hype, with Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper marquee recruits and the Tigers expected to at least push for one final flag bid.
Four rounds in, the Tigers had won one match and spearhead Tom Lynch was ruled out with a foot injury that would ultimately end his season.
Unbeknownst to most of the football world, coach Damien Hardwick had decided 2023 would be his last year at the club and 10 rounds in pulled the plug on his 14-year tenure.
With three wins from 10 games at that point, hopes of a finals berth had been dashed and the prospect of one final premiership push with the current group along with it.
Rather than debating whether the club can make the top eight this season, most of the discourse now centres around whether it can avoid a bottom-four finish.
Failing to do so would result in Richmond’s first bottom-four finish since 2010 and a brutal reminder of how quick the footy world moves.
THE QUICK DROP
Adem Yze, who has been a senior coach in waiting for some time, will not be daunted by the challenge ahead, which is a good approach to have given the scale of it.
The drop offs in 2023 compared to 2022 were significant.
Lynch may be closer to the end of his career than the start, but his loss proved a hammer blow to a Richmond front half that needs to show more in 2024.
The percentage of chains to scores went from second in the competition in 2022 to 12th in 2023, while points scored dropped from first to 11th.
While Richmond’s premiership dynasty was built on a brutality on turnover, the club’s ability to punish opposition sides dropped dramatically in 2023.
Even in a 2022 campaign that saw them lose in the opening week of the finals, the Tigers ranked first in the competition for points from turnover and first for points from forward half intercepts.
Fast forward a year, that had dropped to 12th and 10th in the competition respectively.
It suggests a paradigm shift is needed in how this new iteration of the Tigers plays.
NEW COACH’S GAMEPLAN… AND THE EARLY DOUBT OVER IT
If there’s someone up for the challenge, however, it’s Yze and a star-studded assistant coaching group.
David Teague and Ben Rutten are both respected assistants, while there are huge wraps on what Chris Newman can do and Jack Ziebell is still largely untapped so soon after his playing career.
Yze has already flagged a different look, noting at a member function late last year: “We’re tinkering with our game plan, we’re going to play a bit different to how we have the last couple of years.”
Fox Footy analyst David King noted the Tigers looked to be placing a greater emphasis on kicking than handball, in a potential hint at what Yze may have planned for his charges in 2024.
“I think Richmond’s ball movement model will be a lot safer than what it’s ever been under Damien Hardwick,” King said on SEN Breakfast on Friday, while stressing he had only seen a small sample.
“Kicking more, less risk, wider, that’s how it looks to me … it just looks to me like they’re going to try and kick the ball a bit more and a bit longer. I’m just not sure they’re as skilled as some other teams in that facet.”
TIGERS STILL HAVE ‘OUT AND OUT BEAUTIES’
The good news is Lynch is back running as he eyes an AFL return, which is desperately needed with the retirement of Jack Riewoldt following a 2023 campaign in which he got more than he bargained for in the forward half.
In more good news, Dustin Martin enters the final year of his current contract with Richmond in resurgent form as he closes in on his 300th AFL game, Shai Bolton can still improve on his prodigious talent and Jack Graham finally looks injury-free.
Martin makes up a top end of the Tigers that is still brimming with talent, with the signs from the three-time Norm Smith medallist ominous ahead of the 2024 season.
“Nothing’s changed with the top four or five, they’re out and out beauties. Dustin Martin, my god,” King said on SEN.
“For a man who’s generally not interested in this time of year, he just put 15 minutes together, you just went ‘he’s right’. I think Adem Yze would’ve said ‘get him off now, get him out of all traffic please’.”
At the other end of the ground, Josh Gibcus got through an intra-club this week after an overseas trip to try and rid himself of the hamstring woes that have plagued his career so far.
More consistency from the likes of Noah Balta is needed, while veterans such as Dylan Grimes have more in them than they showed in 2023.
In the middle, despite the conjecture over the length of their deals, Taranto starred and won the club’s best and fairest, while King saw enough this week to suggest Hopper’s sophomore season at the Tigers will be far bigger than his first.
‘COMPLETE REFRESH’ LOOMS FOR TIGERS
A difference this year is that the Tigers are playing for more than just premiership success.
“I’m not sure they get to 10-and-a-half (wins), but they’re resetting as a footy club, I don’t think winning 13 games is on their priority sheet this season,” King said.
“It’s a complete refresh for me. It’s good to see some of their younger kids taking control.”
In any case, it seems fans are in for something a little different to the Tigers of old this season.
“It’s good to see the Tigers, good to see Adem Yze doing something different,” King said.
“They’re probably a club that needs regenerating, a fresh voice. Whether that be on or off field, they just maybe needed this.”