Power’s secret weapon in heart of Glitter Strip
PORT Adelaide is tapping into a revolutionary recovery centre on the Gold Coast to help it through a gruelling travel and competition schedule as it maintains top spot on the AFL ladder.
The Power used Rigs Recovery at Bundall, just near Surfers Paradise, during their two-week stint in the Queensland quarantine hub and were back there on Sunday night before flying home to Adelaide after beating GWS by 17 points.
The visit to Rigs was part of a brutal schedule for the Power with players awake at 4.30am for a 5.30am bus to the airport, and returning home with the four points around 10pm. It looked as though fatigue was catching up with them in the third quarter before they found an extra gear in the last to outrun the Giants who they had not beaten since 2015.
Port Adelaide’s fitness and conditioning has been a feature of their season so farwith veterans Travis Boak, Robbie Gray, Justin Westhoff and Brad Ebert all starring at times and Charlie Dixon finally enjoying an injury free run.
The recovery centre offers compression treatment, cryotherapy, hydro pools and an infra red sauna – and is also believed to have been used by the Gold Coast Suns.
“They (Rigs) looked after us while we stayed up on the Gold Coast,” midfielder Tom Rockliff told The Lowdown Podcast. “A recovery centre with pretty much everything you need – a sauna, float tanks, all the compression stuff, four magnesium baths, hot and cold. It’s very, very impressive.”
Rockliff was dropped last week after what he admits was a below-par performance against Brisbane but still made the trip to the Gold Coast as an emergency for the GWS game.
“I had an inkling it was going to fall that way for me last week, one of those things where I’d prefer to be out there but I wasn’t quite getting it done over the last couple of weeks,” he said.
“It was a disappointing game against Brisbane and with a couple of ins it was going to be tough to stay in the team. No doubt there’s a lot of pressure on for selection and you’ve got to perform your role and I wasn’t able to do that.
“You’ve just got to suck it up and train hard at the moment and when the opportunity arises to make sure I perform my job for the team.”