Port Adelaide will carve out another piece of AFL history next season when it plays for premiership points in Alice Springs.
The Red Centre town will host a regular-season AFL match for the first time next year as part of Melbourne’s three-game deal with the Northern Territory.
The Demons will play Port at Alice Springs’ Traeger Park in round 11, which will have an indigenous theme.
Melbourne will also play grand finalists Fremantle in Darwin during round 16 and also play a pre-season match there next February against another Victorian club.
Alice Springs has regularly hosted pre-season AFL matches, including last summer’s match between an Indigenous All-Stars team and Richmond.
Port Adelaide has a strong connection with Alice Springs going back to the early 1990s when John Cahill took the Port Magpies there to play an NTFL representative side.
They returned regularly and since their move to the AFL Port have played pre-season matches there.
The Power has been involved in games in the Northern Territory every season since 2008, as well as playing games there in 2004 and 2006 and has built up a strong supporter base in the Territory.
More recently the Power has played at Traeger Park twice in the past three years, in the NAB Cup and NAB Challenge – a narrow loss to Richmond in 2011 and a six-point win over West Coast in 2013.
Port Adelaide CEO Keith Thomas said the club was delighted to be playing in Alice Springs.
“To play the first game for premiership points in Alice Springs is an historical event of great significance and we are excited to be part of it,” Thomas said.
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“We already have a connection with Alice Springs having played pre-season cup games there in 2011 and 2013 and to be able to continue playing in the Northern Territory really reinforces our central corridor strategy which is very important to us.”
Demons chief executive Peter Jackson said the club had been in negotiations with the NT government since July.
“We hope this announcement is the first step of a deeper and lasting relationship with the Northern Territory,” he added.
The full AFL fixture is set to be released on Thursday 31 October.
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