Fitness coach Darren Burgess, right, leads the Port Adelaide squad in the scorching heat at Grange. Picture: Campbell Brodie. Source: The Advertiser
INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed fitness coach Darren Burgess believes Port Adelaide's young players will be the club's chief asset as it battles to bounce back from a shocking season on and off the field.
The Power had a trading loss of $6.3 million before grants - $4.1 million if you exclude AFL equalisation funds - and finished near the bottom of the ladder last year but Burgess said there was reason to believe again for the club's supporters.
"There's no pressure this time of year and I don't know what's going to happen when the season comes around," Burgess said.
"But I know from the enthusiasm levels at training over the first six weeks - I've just been blown away with how committed the young guys are to improving.
"A lot of times with young players you don't actually get that. But because a lot of these young players are our leaders ... I've just been stunned by how enthusiastic they are.
"That's the thing that's really stood out to me."
Burgess has a wider perspective than most, having returned to the club after stints with the Socceroos and Liverpool in the English Premier League and is confident there are blue skies ahead for the Power.
Burgess said it was a different club and a different squad from the one he left, which still had strong influences from its early years and the 2004 landmark premiership.
Youth and exuberance to go with a new board and a new coaching staff are now the club's most precious commodities.
It is also time to think of 2013 as a new beginning, a year out from the shift to Adelaide Oval and with the ties to the SANFL expected to be severed within months.
Port will be its own franchise, though heavily reliant on AFL House, but its circumstances are part of a package that suggest a fresh start.
"It feels different because we're so young. It definitely feels like it's a new start, a new beginning," Burgess said.
"It definitely feels like we're on the right path - no question about that.
"It feels like we've got the right people in the right places and everybody's pulling in the same direction.
"Then (when Burgess was last at the club), we had a lot of seasoned campaigners, a lot of premiership players in the squad and around the place.
"Certainly in `07, when I left, we still had a lot of premiership players.
"So you knew, you just knew, that they could deliver on big stages and when it came to the crunch.
"It's a little bit unknown, that side of things (now). The game stuff is a little bit unknown because every club is flying during pre-season and every club is doing interviews with you saying they're the fittest they've ever been."
Meanwhile, former Port Magpies defender George Fiacchi has been approved by members for nomination to a three-year term on its board of directors.
Fiacchi won a majority of the 2712 votes cast in an election of eligible Port Adelaide Football Club 2012 members held between November 30 and December 12.
The board of the Port Adelaide Football Club meets today to consider the members' nomination and vote on recommending that the SA Football Commission ratify Fiacchi's appointment as a director when it meets on Tuesday, December 18.
Fiacchi was nominated by members to fill a position held since 2006 by Alex Panas, who contested the 2012 election along with Trevor Johnson and Jason Makarenko.
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