Port Adelaide has provided an update on Jeremy Finlayson’s fitness as the forward tries to recover from a back issue in time to make his club debut this weekend.
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March 18, 2022 - 2:20PM
News Corp Australia Sports Newsroom
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Port Adelaide expects to field its chosen 22 against Brisbane on Saturday after Jeremy Finlayson’s recovery from a back issue.
Former GWS forward Finlayson went down during Thursday’s training session at Alberton but was named that evening and club doctors had cleared him to play.
The 26-year-old is on track to make his club debut, having featured 66 times for the Giants.
Port Adelaide will take the unusual step of having four travelling emergencies as a precaution due to Covid case numbers increasing in the community.
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Power coach Ken Hinkley said Finlayson and the team were raring to go as it stood, “but you just never know” if things could change.
“Everything’s on track and going OK,” Hinkley said.
“Jeremy had a little incident at training with his back, he’s pulled up fine this morning and everything’s OK.
“Doctors rang me this morning and said ‘look, he’s fine, there’s no problems at all, he’s ready to go’.
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“There’s some chance he gets on a flight and he doesn’t quite travel as well as he’d like and something happens again.”
Port Adelaide expects Jeremy Finlayson (left) to play his first game for the club this weekend.
Jackson Mead will on Saturday night become the first father-son draftee of a former Power player to debut.
The son of inaugural Power best-and-fairest Darren Mead, Mead was taken with pick 25 in the 2019 national draft and missed a large part of last season with a ruptured spleen.
The 20-year-old had impressed Hinkley over summer with his competitive nature and neat skills on both sides of his body.
“(A ruptured spleen is) a big injury and in some ways it’s a life-threatening injury, but he was able to recover really strongly,” Hinkley said.
“I’m really pleased (about the debut) for him and his family.”
The Power has lost its past three matches against the Lions at the Gabba, last winning there in 2017.
With both sides again tipped to be among the premiership favourites, Port Adelaide has an opportunity to make an early statement with a victory as it seeks to atone this year for last season’s preliminary final exit.
Hinkley was confident its attack could perform well without sidelined duo Charlie Dixon and Orazio Fantasia, who were recovering from respective ankle and knee surgeries.
“Every game is an opportunity for you to consolidate who you are and what you are and what you want to be,” Hinkley said.
“They’ve been able to dominate us around the footy a little bit.”
Hinkley said Dixon would probably play at some level next week and the club’s top draftee, Josh Sinn, was close to making the side.
Although Hinkley expected his team to always start the season well, he warned it was dangerous to draw too many conclusions from Round 1.
“You’ve got to let a few rounds play out before you get too carried away with what’s going on,” he said.
“But reality is everyone wants to see their best pre-season training transfer and we’re no different.”