The last of our 2025 Season Previews kicks off with an apology from me.
You see, I had this Port Adelaide preview ready to go a little while back, and shifted my attention to other teams. In the interim, Todd Marshall blew out his Achilles Tendon, and that meant that I had to re-write substantial parts, as his absence both opened some things up, and closed other things down.
Timing, Todd… timing.
In all seriousness, I wish Marshall the best in his recovery. He needed a clean run at this year after the concussion-related issues he was experiencing in 2024, and this is just a kick in the guts.
Port seem to be at the crossroads.
They enter the season with Ken Hinkley having a large target on his back. It’s not his first rodeo in terms of this – he has an entire wardrobe that looks as though he has a Target sponsorship. People have been calling for his head for a long while but he does seem to have a great connection with the players, so it really is a matter of giving him, and his charges, the chance to make good in 2025.
The club has been knocking on the door of a Grand Final appearance for years now. Maybe it is time Port stops being so damn polite, and kicks the bloody thing down!
It’s that time of year, already.
The break after Christmas and New Year is over and January is almost gone. The holidays are finished for AFL players, and we’re right in the midst of hard stuff, now. Yes, the teams had been training for well over a month prior to Christmas, but as we head deeper into 2025, the stakes are raised, and the intensity increases.
This is where premierships are won and lost. This is where improvements are made and lists come together. This is where the kids show if they’re serious or not, and young projects become the next group of stars. New faces, new colours, old heads with renewed passion… so much feeds into the making of a contender. And as the days tick down toward the intra-club clashes, practice games, and eventually the real stuff, questions are raised about each team and how they’re going to perform in this new season.
And that’s where HB and The Mongrel come in.
We don’t do things by halves here, at The Mongrel Punt. When we do a season preview, we go all out to make sure it is the best, most comprehensive coverage you’ll receive. We pride ourselves on it. If you are going to read one season preview for your team, or any team, this series will provide it.
The way it works is as follows.
Each club has a minimum of 15 questions asked about the upcoming season, their coaches, their players, and their expectations. The answers are not glossed over. We dive deep on each and every one of them – some singular answers would normally be long enough for an entire column. The first five questions/answers are free for you to consume. The next 10-14 for each club are for our members, including a special appearance from Mrs Mongrel to throw her two cents in the mix.
Isn’t it a bit early for a season preview? Well, I suppose, but do you know how long it takes to write seven-to-nine thousand words? That’s 18 x 8,000… gets out the calculator… that’s 144,000 words. The average novel is about 85,000 words, so buckle the hell up with these previews; we’re going deeper than ever.
Also, if there are any issues that arise after the publication of the preview for any team, they will be covered in standalone articles to act as additions to this preview.
You will not read a deeper season preview than this – I guarantee it. This is where we start the run to the new season, and believe me – nobody does it better than The Mongrel.
And now we turn our attention to the boys from Alberton. This is a doe or die season for Port Adelaide. Let’s jump into our deep dive.
As stated, I had to do a big re-write of several sections here, which would explain why Port Adelaide is the last of the teams we published.
You see, I wanted to do a bit of playing around with the team and the players Ken Hinkley has at his disposal, but the Achilles Tendon injury to Todd Marshall has really changed everything for this club.
Just like this preview, as Hinkley and his coaching staff were deciding on their answers, the questions were abruptly changed.
Let’s see how the Power adjusts.
1 – IS MITCH GEORGIADES READY TO BE ‘THE MAN’?
The injury to Todd Marshall has seemed to deflate some of the Port Adelaide throng.
Todd was always the player who threatened so much, but rarely delivered. He was a bit like a praying mantis in the way he attacked the footy in the air, never really stretching out to take a clunk, and more waiting for the footy to come in toward his body, where he’s mark it on the chest, or in what I’d liken to T-Rex arms.
It made him an unreliable key forward, as he was never the most physical bloke to begin with.
However, he did force the defence to be spread a little thin, and his absence will be felt. Keenly, at times.
And that leads me to a young man named Mitch Georgiades, who kicked 44 goals last season, despite coming off an ACL injury.
Guys, I have to tell you – this is some impressive stuff. I look at the 2024 season as Mitch’s audition for a bigger role in 2025, and with Marshall going down, he is going to get star billing in this forward line. And you know what – he deserves it, too.
Where Marshall attacked contests half-heartedly, Georgiades throws himself into the fray. Where Marshall half-extends his arms, big marks are the bread and butter of Georgiades. And the area that was once his weakest turned around in 2024, as well, as he started slotting goals at a higher clip of accuracy.
Is he ready to be The Man? Well, let’s explore a little more.
Who was The Man at Port in 2024, in terms of the forward line?
My guess is that you’d struggle to answer. Some may even say it was Charlie Dixon, but that is an answer built on reputation – not results. Charlie was nowhere near it last season. Nor was Marshall. Mitch Georgiades was already The Man. He just didn’t command the footy as often as he could have, or perhaps should have. He was still in the mode of deferring to others.
That won’t be the case in 2025.
He is now 23 years of age, has five years in the AFL system in the bank, and has built his body up to the stage he is no longer easily punished off the line of the footy. If you’re waiting for him to arrive, have a look around, and you’ll see him sitting there looking at his watch – he has been here for ages waiting for you to realise.
The 50-goal mark beckons for Georgiades in 2025. Without Marshall and Dixon inside 50, the Power are going to lean on Mitch heavily. He will team with an assortment of Jeremy Finlayson, Ollie Lord, and Jack Lukosius, providing a versatile forward setup capable of kicking a decent score.
As much as it seems Port lost a lot when Marshall went down in the wake of Dixon’s retirement, they made a Prelim in 2024 with an input consisting of just 45 combined goals.
Port can get that from elsewhere.
Finlayson, at his best, has a 44-goal season to his name. Yes, that was at GWS, but he also kicked 38 in 2022 as part of the Power. He can snag them, but he played just 12 games last season.
Ollie Lord is the other who should now get an extended shot as a marking forward. He is just 22, but has a couple of years in the system, himself, and we’ve seen young forwards able to play the role of deep forward and bring the ball to ground for the smalls for the past several years.
And the recruitment of Jack Lukosius should give Hinkley a bit to work with, as well. More on this later.
In the middle of it all will reside Georgiades. Before he was injured, he was probably battling it out to be the third option on the team. What a difference a couple of years can make, huh? He is now the number one man, and he is primed to be the player that drives this Port Adelaide offence in 2025.
50+ goals and some serious consideration for the All-Australian team await him in 2025.
If he wasn’t already, this is the year he is The Man.
2 – WHERE DOES JACK LUKOSIUS PLAY HIS FOOTY IN 2025?
This is another section that got a hefty rewrite thanks to Todd Marshall’s Achilles going snap.
Initially, I was floating the idea of Lukosius taking that elite kicking to half-back, to replace the lethal boot of Dan Houston, but Marshall’s injury will likely cause any notion of Lukosius as a defender to be scuttled. At least initially.
If Ken Hinkley was considering it, he likely would have been tempted as a result of watching Lukosius play the role at Gold Coast – it was amongst about four roles the club tried him in, and eventually bit the bullet on, and moved him. Finally, the Suns settled on Lukosius as a key forward, and number two man behind Ben King.
This resulted in a nine-game stretch that produced 17 goals, but only once did the former Sun really take the bull by the horns, kicking five against the Cats.
So, here’s the dilemma with Lukosius. He has been very good in most roles, but he has not been excellent in any of them. Those 17 goals in nine games are great, but on either side of those games, there is a string of two goalless games, so it is actually more like 17 goals from 13 games. Less impressive. Yeah, it was an intentional cherry-pick of stats to build him up, just so I could knock him down… I’m an ass.
However, be that as it may, it remains fact. Lukosius has been a man who has not owned a role at AFL level. He has been tried as a half-forward, moved to the wing, back to defence, and then forward as a marking option. Never once, was his place in the team threatened, but never once was it completely secure, either. He just bandied about between different positions like he was sexually experimenting with his first girlfriend – trying as hard as he could, but not being particularly excellent at anything.
So, does he find a permanent home in the Port Adelaide forward line, and does this mean he will finally get to settle in and make a role his own?
I really don’t know.
The Power have a weird forward set up, now. They have a burgeoning star in Mitch Georgiades, so he’ll be the number one man. They have a hybrid in Jeremy Finlayson, and if he can stop getting angry at his teammates further up the ground and play team footy, could be a very good option. They have Ollie Lord, who will have to elevate his game, and they have Lukosius, who has been a bit of a nowhere man.
The more I look at this setup, the more I think Lukosius is set to continue a career of plugging holes.
Dan Houston is gone, but Kane Farrell and Miles Bergman are still here (both very good – Bergman, or exceptional – Farrell, kicks of the footy) and will likely be first choice players at half-back, but Lukosius can bring value there, as well.
He’ll start forward, have moments, then a quiet patch. At that point, Port will contemplate whether changing his role is the right thing to do. And round we go, again.
Such is life for Jack Lukosius in the AFL. Only he can stop the merry-go-round, and only consistency will do that.
3 – CAN THIS MIDFIELD TRIO BE THE BEST IN THE COMPETITION?
Largely dependent on the opponent on the day, this midfield nucleus, consisting of Connor Rozee, Zak Butters, and Jason Horne-Francis could be, and perhaps should be, the most damaging trio in the competition in 2025 when they’re all in there together.
On any given day, any of these three can be the deciding factor in a game. There are not too many teams that can boast having three players in the midfield capable of that.
As a matter of fact, I don’t think there are any, other than Port. Maybe Sydney (Gulden, Heeney, Warner), or Melbourne (Petracca, Oliver, Viney… assuming they’re all well). That’d be about it, though.
Regardless, it is tough to get three players in the mix that can turn a game off their own boot, and it is a luxury that Port has this at their disposal.
The wheels kind of fell off at the end of the season, with Butters carrying a rib injury through September, Rozee forgetting how to be patient and execute well, and Jason Horne-Francis unable to exert his influence to the level he would have liked.
It left Port fighting an uphill battle in the finals, with perhaps its greatest weapon taken away.
Of all those players, the one I reckon needed to do more was Rozee. At 17.7 disposals per game, he fell away dramatically, and some of his rushed disposals were such nothing kicks. The club needed their captain to stand up, be composed, and create opportunities. Instead, he threw the ball on his boot, went for distance, and forgot that he is one of the best-skilled players in the game.
I hope that finals series was a learning experience, because with composure, Rozee is a deadly assassin. Without it, he is a scatter-gunner, hoping to find a target.
Another year older, another year wiser, the lessons of 2024 were painful for this trio. Butters will be salivating at the chance to redeem himself, after that rib injury robbed him of the chance to play good footy. He has not had a run of games where he was so ineffectual since the start of the 2021 season (he had 45 touches across the three finals).
I give him a pass due to the injury (he was subbed out of one game, and played the rest injured), but his pride would have been injured just as much as his ribs. Perhaps more. He will fly out of the gates in 2025.
Horne-Francis is the one, this season. Did you know he has only gone over 30 disposals once in his career?
Yeah, I was surprised, as well, but when you stop to think about it, he is not really an accumulator, is he? He is the crash-and-bash type that earns every touch, and dares the opposition to stop him. Back when he started in the league, he was playing a man’s game with a kid’s body. He was trying to break tackles every time, and the additional pre-seasons of his opponents made sure he wasn’t getting away.
Things are different now.
Horne-Francis is still just 21, but he has the type of core power now that is absolutely required to smash through those tackles – we saw it in 2024. He doesn’t just demand the attention of one opponent – if you want to take this bloke down, you have to send a battalion to do so. He is the key to this midfield, now. He is the one who can get 25 touches, and every one of them spells trouble.
With an upward trajectory already established in his numbers, JHF culd be looking at 24-25 touches per game this season. If he does that, not only will he become Port’s most damaging and feared midfielder, which is saying plenty, but he will probably give the Brownlow a shake – he draws the eye when he plays footy.
I am backing him for a huge season, and if that comes to fruition, he strikes me as the type of player who will absolutely stand up when the pressure is on. He will thrive on it.
As an addendum, I know what will happen here. Someone will take it upon themselves to post on a Port Forum, or a FB group and mock me because I didn’t mention Ollie Wines, or, in particular, Willem Drew in this section. After all, they’re huge parts of this powerful midfield, too, right?
Right… which is why they’re mentioned further in another section. Sorry to ruin your fun.
4 – HOW MUCH DID THIS CLUB MISS SAM POWELL-PEPPER IN 2024?
Every club needs mongrel.
Every club needs a player that will body-line the footy, charge through the pack, and take bodies with him as he collects it.
Port are blessed in this regard – they have several, but standing out from the pack is Sam Powell-Pepper, and I reckon his absence from this team in 2024 was keenly felt in the later stages of the season.
Prior to the ACL injury that derailed his 2024 season, SPP was coming off a career-high 31-goal season. As a pressure forward, he was one of the keys to this Port team, and it is only when you sit back and look at the blows this team took to key personnel, that you understand how tough an AFL season is, and how much depth is required.
SPP went down, Marshall was struggling with concussion stuff, Dixon was banged up to the point even moving looked like a chore for him, Houston was suspended. All key players, all struggling, or out.
Anyway, of all of them, I reckon SPP was the biggest loss. What he brought to the table, Port struggled to cover. Even with Darcy Byrne-Jones as a defensive forward, they couldn’t find someone that made the opposition look over their shoulders when they had the footy.
SPP does that.
He had 1.4 tackles inside 50 in 2024, making him Port’s number one man in that category. However, it wasn’t just the tackles that made him special, and made his so sorely missed in 2024. It was the aggression – the mongrel – he brings to each and every contest.
Yes, Zak Butters has it. Yes, DBJ has it, as well, and Jason Horne-Francis oozes mongrel.
But it is part of Powell-Pepper’s DNA, and whilst it has got him in trouble (that suspension to start 2024 was a joke, by the way – as if he would try to hurt someone in a bloody practice game), it remains a critical component of who he is, and what he means to this team.
Yes, every team needs mongrel. Every team needs players that will never, ever take a backwards step, and Port Adelaide persevered with SPP at a time he was not as his best, in order to now experience exactly what he can do.
Coming off an ACL, I don’t expect him to come out and have a career-best season. If you’ve read my stuff, you’d know I believe it takes a while to really get back after you lose trust in your body like that, but what I do believe is that Powell-Pepper is a difference-maker, and with him in the forward line, this whole team walks a little taller.
Welcome back Sam… you’ve been greatly missed.
5 – CAN WE TALK ABOUT UNCLE KEN, NOW?
Better than talking about Uncle Colin, I guess.
Anyway, the knives are out for Ken Hinkley, and really, they have been for years. Part of me wonders, had the Power not got over the Hawks in the 2024 Semi-Final, whether I’d be writing this section, at all? Or perhaps I would be writing about what the incoming coach is going to bring to the table – such is the way one result can change things.
Hinkley is on what equates to super secret double probation this season. He either has to win two finals, or he’s toast, and that’s the about it, for him.
It doesn’t matter if Port have a massive run through the season and finish top four – the supporters have seen it before.
It doesn’t matter if they come out and lay waste to a team in the first week of finals. That will be viewed as meaningless, unless that team goes on to smash through the glass ceiling it has continually smacked its head on.
To be coach in 2026, Uncle Ken needs to make the Grand Final.
No pressure, huh?
Would you consider Hinkley a successful coach?
We tend to mark so harshly in the AFL. Success is ultimately assessed by whether a team holds aloft the premiership cup, and that’s about it. Ross Lyon suffers the same criticism about his coaching tenures – close, but no cigar. But for one bounce of a footy, the narrative changes drastically for Lyon. Does a Grand Final berth do the same for Hinkley? Or if Port fall over at that stage, does it just solidify the view in the minds of his detractors, that he cannot get the job done?
Harsh, indeed.
I believe Hinkley is a good coach. Not a great, but perhaps even very good. He has had this Port Adelaide team “up” for five years. They have made the Prelim in three of those seasons, but in a world where success is only celebrated in one way, it is not good enough.
Yep, I fear that even a second-place finish would not be good enough to save Ken Hinkley in 2025. Unless he wins the flag with this group, and that gets more difficult every time a newspaper headline tells us a player is going to miss the whole season, he is a dead man walking.
And you know what?
If I were him and I did manage to climb the mountain in 2025, I would hold the cup aloft, thank the players, and the administration, and I’d walk off into the sunset at peace with what I achieved. I wouldn’t come back to do it all again.
I kind of feel like Uncle Ken deserves to go out like that.
But then, how often do people truly get to go out the way they deserve?
The next 14 questions are for our members. Option to join below.
This is just under a third of our preview. The rest is available exclusively to our members. People, we give value. No same old gabage you’re going to hear from ten others, taking turns in mimicking each other. No played out opinions. Thoughtful, balanced, and comprehensive – that’s what we aspire to provide in these previews, and your support makes them bigger and better every year. Jump on board.
