Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley is excited about the club’s highly rated draftees, expecting them to play senior footy in 2020.
Making four picks in the top 25, the Power landed Miles Bergman out of Sandringham, Mitch Georgiades out of Subiaco, Dylan Williams from Oakleigh and Jackson Mead of Woodville-West Torrens.
While the senior coach admits he hasn’t seen a great deal of what they can do just yet, Hinkley says the expectation is they have an immediately impact.
“Last year we didn’t expect come Christmas that the three boys (Connor Rozee, Xavier Duursma and Zak Butters) would play 60 games of football, but you don’t really get to see much of them before Christmas,” he told SEN SA Breakfast.
“Now we’ll get to see what they can do and even yesterday in our running stuff we’ve seen that those young boys run unbelievably well, so that’s a great start.
“We know that Bergman and Georgiades can certainly play a bit at the top end already and Williams is more of a wildcard of the first rounders, but you draft first rounders knowing that they play in their first year.
“So I expect them all at some stage to play.”
On the other side of the coin, Hinkley adds that Port Adelaide’s veterans are all looking good at this early stage of summer.
“Charlie Dixon is training well and is in a good space, but it’s not just Charlie, Robbie Gray is training as well as I have seen so that is really important for us,” he said.
“We’ve got Brad Ebert out there, Hamish Hartlett, Tom Jonas, the five boys that have been here the whole journey with me have been critically important to us, Justin Westhoff is another one, they understand their responsibility, but all of them are doing what they can to be in good shape.”
Listen to the full Ken Hinkley interview below