Adelaide: first AFL training
Only 19 days after the Adelaide Football Club was a confirmed starter for the 1991 AFL season, a squad of SANFL players met at Football Park for the first official training session.
It was October 29, 1990, and 57 players from every SANFL club had been identified and invited to training by SA football greats Bob Hammond and Neil Kerley, assisted by SANFL General Manager (Football Operations) Murray Tippett.
Yellow singlets and blue shorts were the first hand-outs to the players, who quickly discovered that they would need to commit to a heavy training workload in the coming weeks under fitness coach Trevor Jaques.
The ten Port Adelaide players named in the initial squad were away on a football trip and Norwood champion Garry McIntosh declined the invite.
But 42 players were on the track for the first session – a warm-up, run around West Lakes, some ball work and running. At the start of training it was noticed that someone forgot to bring any footballs, so these had to be borrowed from the SANFL junior development squad.
SANFL State team support staff were co-opted to provide support at the training sessions until the Club could recruit its own personnel.
Inaugural coach Graham Cornes told The Advertiser he was happy with the training squad.
“Of the players that are available to us, we’ve got the best ones,” he said. “But there will be others who may be able to force their way in at a later date. There are some youngsters we will keep an eye on and obviously there will be a couple of players who will fall by the wayside. At this stage there’s an equal opportunity for everyone to make their mark.”
Cornes said the players needed to be bigger, stronger and conditioned to play intense, pressure football. “It’s going to be a tough pre-season, there’s absolutely no doubt about that.”
Adelaide Football Club’s first named training squad was: