Scott Hodges marked early and his resultant set shot sailed out on the full as he adjusted to the damage to his stabilising leg. Port entered the 1990 finals series as minor premier on the back of a 9 game winning streak starting with the round 12 win over Glenelg. 1x premiership: 2004 Best and Fairest: 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012 Life Member: 2010 All-Australian: 2006, 2007 Best First Year Player: 2001 Most Improved Player: 2004.

Against this bitter and acrimonious backdrop, Port’s bid lost traction with the AFL clubs.

Within 60 seconds Hodges had made an impact. They were favourites leading into their previous 4 Grand Finals. Kicking with the breeze in the first quarter under overcast skies, Port Adelaide simply rag-dolled Glenelg from the opening bounce with its typical strong aggressive finals football and scintillating teamwork. It wasn’t all smooth sailing however.

It was a strong first quarter. Granger started to jog back to position, but stopped, turned, pointed at Carey and laughed. Oh for a crystal ball before such important games! Port Adelaide’s reign over the local competition was undeniable and infuriating to the less successful clubs living in the shadow of overwhelming success cast from Alberton.

So did elder statesmen Roger Delaney and Rohan Smith. Port saw off Central again in the Prelim Final, winning by 90 points with Simon Pedler and Troy Olsen kicking 9 goals between them. Then came Port Adelaide’s turn for a 3 goal burst in the dying moments of a quarter. Fantastic review Macca. A precociously talented 16 year old with blistering speed and sublime skills was introduced to the Port league side in the pre-season.

Paul Northeast had shut Scott Morphett out of the match and Darryl Wakelin was playing a beauty at centre half back.
With West Adelaide in tatters in the last quarter Cunningham chose his moment to leave the game, pushing his way through the crowd and provoking some minor confrontation with the Alberton faithful.

The Eagles had dominated the midfield, dominated across half back and had winners up forward. Tim Ginever goaled 22 minutes in and when Stephen Williams played on and goaled from 30 metres out it was party time.

Speculation gathered momentum quickly and was spreading like wildfire by Tuesday 31 July when Port Adelaide formally advised the SANFL then publicly announced that a Heads of Agreement had been signed with the AFL on 30 July to field a Port Adelaide team in the AFL in the 1991 season.

Goals would become jewels to be treasured.

Finally the players could revel in the victorious conclusion to a season that had taken the most unexpected twists and turns and delivered crushing pressure far beyond those already expected of a club chasing a third consecutive premiership.

A stocky rover with pace and a booming kick, ‘Rusty’ had struggled with injury throughout his career. The incident fuelled the increasingly hostile and bitter relationship between Port and Glenelg which was to deteriorate further in 1982 and reignite in fury in 1990. Losing a final was never an option. Ebert remains the only footballer to have achieved this feat.

Another challenger would need to arise, and that challenger was North Adelaide. But Port and Glenelg were not to meet in the finals as Glenelg lost both of its finals comprehensively to Sturt and Norwood to be dismissed in straight sets. Port kicked 5 goals to 3 in the second quarter to lead by 10 points at the half time break, which was punctuated by an all-in brawl featuring John Spry employing a fearsome choke hold to try and see the colour of Graham Cornes’s tongue. Suspended Trevor Sorrell joined his team-mates for the traditional lap of honour and retired after the game. Like the Lady of the Lake in Arthurian legend, a worthy king was being sought upon whom to bestow the Excalibur of the competition’s ultimate prize. After falling 19 points behind in the second quarter, Port Adelaide turned on its finals after-burners and blew Centrals away by 26 points with its trademark relentless finals football.

Mark Williams was shadowing Chris McDermott while Bruce Abernethy picked up David Marshall. They had achieved the ultimate and it was now up to the rest of the competition to chase them down. On-field, Port was seeking yet another premiership.

Not only did Port Adelaide win the league premiership, it completed the double with the reserves winning the premiership over Woodville. The club also recruited Crow ruckman Darren Bartsch from West Adelaide. Gerlach brought up his 100th game for Port during the 1977 season. Despite being well-placed at this point of the season, Port Adelaide had not been playing its best football. His namesake Rohan goaled after some great defending by Greg Phillips. It was now up to David Hynes to lead the Port rucks single-handed and the spring-heeled, combative Hynes as usual rose to the challenge, despite giving away centimetres and kilograms to his Glenelg opponents.

As well as losing Johnston, Port lost Mark Warton to a hamstring tear at training during grand final week.

Wayne Mahney while clearly without his customary zip was still competing hard as John Cahill demands. As Weber recounted in a 1990 interview with Port Adelaide historian John Wood for the Magpie News November 1990, Vol.1(4) Schwab was very keen on a club side entering the competition having seen the early difficulties of the West Coast Eagles and Brisbane Bears. Inexperienced back up ruckman Robert Dolan experienced hamstring soreness during Grand Final week and was in some doubt for the match.

Rovers Brian Cunningham and Darrell Cahill found plenty of the ball to spark the Magpies, while Ross Agius led all scorers with 3 goals.

Port Adelaide moved the ball brilliantly from deep in defence to attack in an exhilarating passage of play starting with Paul Rizonico to Greg Phillips to Bruce Abernethy to David Hutton and then to Stephen Williams who from the wing found Hodges on the lead.

Port Adelaide’s centre line became impenetrable as Stephen Williams put the clamps on the damaging Alan Stringer, the likes of Hutton, Obst and Rohan Smith winning plenty of the ball and David Hynes dominant in the ruck. While Port was considered to be the fresher side having played only one final over the month, it had already had to defend strongly into the breeze in hot and trying conditions for two quarters.

The turning point of the season came against Glenelg in Round 14.

They played tough, uncompromising football. Simon would also finish runner up to Hodges in the Port Adelaide Best and Fairest count. Port Adelaide had negotiated handsome entry conditions in meetings with the AFL that were revealed to have stretched back to early July following an approach to Port by AFL Executive Commissioner Alan Schwab through intermediary Ian McKenzie, a former Port Adelaide General Manager.
From the next bounce down, Hodges marked on the lead again, kicked his second, and the margin was out to 24 points. Defections, injury and form concerns appeared to be derailing Port’s campaign from the outset, much to the barely disguised glee of opposition clubs and media commentators. Jack Cahill returned to the club as coach after a 5 year absence and would bring with him an era of success that helped to catapult the Port Adelaide Football Club onto the national stage.

Port’s first quarter score was an SANFL finals record. Hodges sat up grimacing, grasping at his left knee. And it was Hodges again a minute later who had snapped over his shoulder to Andrew Mcleod who juggled a mark and kicked his 2nd for the quarter. Despite finishing minor premier in 1976 and contesting the Grand Final, some important player turnover was essential to Port taking the ultimate step in 1977. It's off-season and we're bored so here's a bit of a history lesson for those too young and a reminisce for those too old. The crowd knew, the players knew, the opposition knew, Port Adelaide was home. After the heartache of 1988, this was an emotional winner. Darren Mead, was still impacting in the ruck. On Port’s part, while it had won handsomely to gain direct entry to the Grand Final, its build up was not without drama.

The situation was exacerbated with a season ending injury to Fragomeni on the cusp of the finals leaving inexperienced defenders Ivan Eckermann, Tony Hannan, Len Warren, Greg Phillips and Randall Gerlach partnering Woite in the backlines to contest the Grand Final.

Not only did the club lose its youth, it lost its most respected of champions. Round 2 saw Port meet Norwood in the Anzac Day fixture at Football Park, held on a Wednesday in front of a record minor round crowd of 36,397 supporters.


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