And a rumoured rift with teammate Hamish Hartlett, which took on a life of its own when Hartlett made a poorly chosen comment at a sponsors' function about his girlfriend and Boak. What took place in private was a club acknowledging it had failed to adequately support its captain through those and other challenges even though everyone involved insists the Hartlett "rift" was without basis. Plenty has changed behind the scenes at Port Adelaide since then as a result and Boak was one who went to some uncomfortable lengths to search inside himself for a better way to do his job and lead the team. It was a search in which he had some intensive therapy with the club's largely hidden but highly effective psychologist Ceri Evans, a New Zealand-based Rhodes Scholar whose previous sessions at the club had been restricted to Hinkley and his coaching team. "I had my ups and downs with him [Evans]," said Boak, who began what was for him a new form of self-analysis six months ago. "The first step is the hardest. As males we tend to bury things and we don't take the care we should of the mental space.

"I've buried stuff like with my Dad [Boak's beloved father Roger died of cancer when Boak was 16] and you bury it and you move on and you think you've really moved on but you haven't really faced it. "People suffer everywhere in life. There's death, there's marriage break-ups and there's guilt and there's anger and there's sadness. But we should talk about these things because facing up to things helps empty everything out into the open. For me the footy becomes clearer and decisions seem so much easier." Whatever happens against Sydney next week when Boak runs onto the SCG for his 200th game in his fifth season as captain, the 28-year-old insists he will be a mentally lighter version of his old self and one who has learnt again to love his job. "I never thought I didn't want it [the captaincy]," said Boak, "but it was certainly challenging. It was certainly my most challenging year as captain and I wasn't playing the way I wanted. You question yourself. "To sit and hear your teammates say 'We still want you' even though I wasn't playing the way I wanted and tell me how much they appreciate me as their captain ... it was nice to hear after the tough year that I had.

"I know I can't control everything and I can't fix everything. I'm in my fifth year in the job now and I love it more than anything but I also had to tell them I needed to ask more of them. And although I thought I set the standards for discipline for the club, I wasn't hiding from the fact my form wasn't what it should have been." That player feedback came as part of Port's new leadership program, marking the first time since Hinkley became coach that he has removed himself from that process. Hinkley selected his former Geelong colleague and Leading Teams co-founder Gerard Murphy, like Boak a Jan Juc boy, who was enlisted at Alberton after being offloaded in unusual circumstances by Richmond midway through last season. Evans was the deeper reason a weight appears lifted from Boak's shoulders, the new leadership program seems to have helped him delegate. And his near-perfect off-season break, along with a more skill-oriented pre-season program, has helped him develop a better understanding of his body and be "more excited" and in better physical shape than he can remember before the start of previous seasons. The break was punctuated by his first Noosa triathlon, a surf trip to Bali's Uluwatu, New Year's Eve with his old surf coast gang at Thirteenth Beach. It was over the Christmas/New Year period that Boak swore off alcohol in a joint pact with the injured Charlie Dixon in a bid to support the latter, who his teammates knew would struggle to give up drinking during his holiday period. "He could be anything, really," said Boak, a two-time all-Australian of the high-profile recruit Dixon, who battled through his first season at Port. "The more he understands his body and the impact he can have and the presence he has, the more important he can be for us." For Boak there was also a sponsor's visit to the US where Port's high-performance boss Darren Burgess took the captain and some teammates to several sessions with the Seattle Seahawks – the elite, tough-as-nails NFL side whose players demonstrated to the Port boys how much fun even the hardest training session can become.

"Sometimes we forget it's also meant to be fun," said Boak. "Those boys went so hard in training drills but there was so much enjoyment and fun with the music blaring and yet they manage to be so serious about what they do as well." Something of a shadowy figure rarely discussed by the club during his semi-regular visits to Alberton over the past three years, Evans is a former New Zealand soccer captain who has worked with the All Blacks. Having studied experimental psychology at Oxford, his work in forensic psychiatry has also led to him working with serial killers. Boak said the intensity of his sessions with Evans reflected the intensity of the game which, in his mind, has amplified in the years since he became captain. "He [Evans] is pretty intense but the result has seen me realise that life is actually pretty good," said Boak. "For a variety of reasons I feel lighter and I realise I can't fix six or seven things at once but I just need to stick to one thing – one process. "I'm better at understanding how I'm feeling in a certain situation and overcoming it." Boak's ambition for 2017 is fittingly simple. "More than anything I want to be the best leader I can," he said. "If I can look back and say I was the best captain I can be, then I think we're going to have a pretty good year.

"All that other stuff, the all-Australians and stuff, that takes care of itself. What I want this group to do is to win a premiership and that's what we're here for." Chairman Koch looks back on last year's issue with Boak as two leaders defending their turf and his admiration for the on-field leader has only grown since he first demonstrated his depth of care and maturity after the death of teammate John McCarthy. But he has handed the team and specifically Hinkley another ultimatum with his repeated "finals or bust" edict this week. "If Ken's under the pump we're all under the pump," said Boak. "We'll never leave Ken by himself and he might say he's the first in line and we know that's the nature of footy but we don't see it that way. For us we're all in this together." With the leadership at Port more evenly spread across the group and the significant promotion of Ollie Wines to vice-captain, the only true negative over the summer break was the alcohol-fuelled car accident outside Angus Monfries' house which led to the club suspending Jarman Impey, who was driving, and teammate and passenger Aidyn Johnson from round one. "We let each other down and also Jarman there," said Boak, who added that dealing with Impey, who was still struggling significantly following the recent death of his father, was much tougher than dealing with a repeat offender.

"What I'm very proud of is that we dealt with it straight away. It wasn't acceptable, but we're done with it now and we've made it clear to Jarman that we know what he's going through and we want to help him. "Again I think he's getting the professional help he needs, but both those boys are determined to make amends for what they did and we've seen that all summer on the track." Boak will see out his playing days at Port Adelaide and lives in his recently renovated house with his younger sister Cassie and her boyfriend – the sister he left behind at a particularly tough time after his father's death. He says the two grew apart for a time after he moved away but that has all changed. After knocking back a widely publicised offer from Geelong to return home more than four years ago, Boak's longer-term ambition is also a simple one. It relates to his father, who played 230 games for Torquay, whose clubrooms are named in his honour. "I'd love to be here in some way after I finish playing," he said. "I love Adelaide but I also really love Torquay and I'd love to play for Torquay one day and wear my father's No. 5."