One of the game’s biggest-name out-of-contract players in 2024 won’t be going anywhere, with Ken Hinkley declaring he would be “staggered” if key forward Todd Marshall departed Port Adelaide.
Marshall, 25, has shown enormous promise in his 97 AFL games since being taken in the first round of the 2016 National draft and has kicked 81 goals over the past two years.
Port’s primary spearhead alongside Charlie Dixon, Marshall grew up in country New South Wales. But Hinkley is confident there’s no lure from home and Marshall will soon put pen to paper on a new deal.
“Todd loves the footy club, loves being at our footy club. I would be staggered if he doesn’t remain at our football club, which I’m sure won’t be the case,” Hinkley told SEN’s Whateley.
“I imagine, knowing Todd, he’s not the sort of person who likes much spotlight so I’d imagine he wants that done pretty soon and get it out of the way.
“Optimistically, I’d love it done before the start of the year but Todd has every right with his management to take his time.”
Marshall is due to become a restricted free agent in 2024 if he remains unsigned.
His signature would leave Aliir Aliir as the Power’s most important unsigned player.
Marshall's pending contract would follow a strong 12 months for Port Adelaide’s list management team, who have signed all of Connor Rozee (until 2032), Zak Butters (2026) and Jason Horne-Francis (2028) to in recent times.
List boss Jason Cripps also enjoyed a trade period that plugged numerous holes for the Power, with defenders Esava Ratugolea and Brandon Zerk-Thatcher coming in alongside ruckmen Ivan Soldo and Jordan Sweet.
While all four are relatively unproven at the top level, Hinkley is optimistic about the quartet.
“I think we’ve done absolutely everything we could… Jason has done a great job bringing in the people we needed,” Hinkley noted about the player movement period.
“We brought in two rucks who are both trying to emerge in their own rights… it was clear to us that we needed a little more size down back to help and support Aliir, we were asking him to do probably too much.
“With that in mind, we had TJ (Tom Jonas) who was retiring and coming to the end, we had an injured Trent McKenzie a fair bit throughout the season.
“We weren’t just down with a bit of size, we were down with personnel available to us so we’ve certainly made a conscious decision and we had made that decision a couple of years ago, as was clear when we tried to bring Esava to the club 12 months earlier.
“We’re really optimistic around what Esava and Brandon can bring down back.”
Those four will get an opportunity to press their case throughout the Power’s pre-season games, with Hinkley’s men to face Adelaide on February 23 and Fremantle on March 1.