Here is my top 10 both favourite and character/season defining games in the last 2 seasons under Hinkley, that have lead the team to where they are today.

These games are all positive wins and memorable favourites for me, but some of our games when we lost against the quality top 4 sides, whilst tough at the time, long term are a wonderful education with lessons learnt for the team … for example our last 2 games this season.

10. Round 5, 2013, Port 84 West Coast 79 – Kane Cornes 250th game. Awesome comeback game. The confidence in Hinkley’s game plan got a massive boost after this win.

9. Round 13, 2013, Port 72 Sydney 54 – Domenic Cassisi was enormous and the team showed in the wet how composed they were. They also won this game without Boak as he was out injured with a finger injury.

8. Round 14, 2013, Port 86 Collingwood 51 – Only 2 short years ago Port lost to the Pies by 138 points so this win dramatically demonstrated our rise and on the back of such a stirring win the previous week there was a big crowd too. The 40,000 member was announced and won a Renault and the tribute to John McCarthy was memorable too with a ’35’ point margin.

7. Round 19, 2013, Port 107 Adelaide 103 – That bounce! The comeback was enormous and Wingard made a statement! Last proper Showdown was a win for the best AFL club in SA.

6. Elimination Final, 2013, Port 87 Collingwood 63 – A winning final in front of 60,000+ at the MCG against Collingwood! Wingard and Wines were outstanding, whilst everyone else played superbly too.

5. Round 2, 2014, Port 128 Adelaide 73 – Bragging rights in SA footy FOREVER! It was a win that was not as easy as the scoreline suggests as Adelaide did get in the lead midway through the 3rd quarter, before Port ran away from their with a big win. Polec and White showed their value immediately too.

4. Round 6, 2014, Port 107 Geelong 67 – First win over Geelong since 2007 was way overdue and I believe was such a mental hurdle to get over, that was healing for more the fans and a confidence boost for the team.

3. Round 10, 2014, Port 100 Hawthorn 86 – Big crowd, big game, another team that we had not beaten for a long time. Second year in a row defeating the current cup holders from the previous season. The Anzac Day game next week is going to be huge!

2. Round 18, 2014, Port 72 Melbourne 69 – Whilst frustratingly being clamped by a Paul Roos coached defence, it was a character defining win beyond season 2014. It was terrific to get over the line for ‘The Dom’ and I’ll never forget how nervous I was when Jay was kicking that last goal. My view of that goal was directly on the line of his kick. and I was just thinking ‘Kick it to me Schulzy!’

1. Elimination Final, 2014, Port 132 Richmond 75 – Whilst I would like to bundle both this win and the win the following week v Fremantle together, I would rate the home final win at the Portress a bit more character defining as it was the confidence builder that took Port all the way to the Preliminary Final and very close to a Grand Final. The first 7 goals were electrifying and very satisfying and for an entire quarter the noise created by us True Believers had to be loudest roar the Portress had seen since the stadiums makeover in late 2013.

THE PORTRESS – WE ARE PORT ADELAIDE