COACH Paul Roos says the club relishes the opportunity to play in Alice Springs and believes it’s important to play AFL matches in capital cities and regional parts of Australia, particularly the Northern Territory.
Speaking at Traeger Park on Friday afternoon, Roos said the club had embraced playing two home and away matches in Northern Territory – one in Alice Springs and one in Darwin – since that started last year.
“We love coming up here … with the national competition the way it is, it’s great for us – the community is really welcoming. We came here last year and put on a really good game with Port … Port was terrific as well,” he said.
“I don’t get really involved in all [the negotiations to play further matches in the Territory], but I know the AFL is really committed.
“I know the AFL is really committed in a lot of their programs and taking them out to the communities … because sometimes as an organisation we can get fairly insular.”
Roos said the warmer conditions in Alice Springs wouldn’t pose a problem for his team.
“It’s a nice day and we’d be happy to play in this weather all of the time,” he said.
“It’s more the contrast of coming out of Melbourne and then coming up here, but the players will be fine.”
Roos said the fact that it was Indigenous Round this weekend added another special element to the Territory trip.
“We had Jeff [Garlett] bring some of his family down [to the club] on Thursday and they did some dances on the ground for us,” he said.
“We had the club over to watch and it's fantastic when we can get a bit of education from our Indigenous players because it probably doesn't happen enough. Nev Jetta normally gives a presentation and talks about where he's from with Jay Kennedy-Harris as well.
“It's a really great weekend and a really educational weekend for everyone as well.”
Looking ahead to Saturday’s clash against the Power, Roos said Port Adelaide was an “exceptional team” and one his side needed to be at its best to beat.
“They've proved that over the last two or three years … we’ve just got to play really good footy in order to beat them, because their best is top four as we saw last year,” he said.
“You always prepare for the best and the best for Port is one kick away from the Grand Final.
“They’re a really good team and we had two great games against them last year. Our main focus is to try and play as well as we did last week and continue to improve on that effort.”
