Adam Reynolds and Cody Walker swapped the Steeden for the Sherrin last Monday as part of a reciprocal visit to AFL club Port Adelaide.
Following on from the Power’s visit to Redfern back in early December, Head Coach Anthony Seibold sent his first-choice halves to South Australia in a bid to fine tune their kicking ahead of season 2018.
The pair enjoyed some familiar company with Assistant Coach Peter Gentle and Development Coach Willie Peters joining them to learn and further their own development as coaches.
In what was a smart and progressive approach to pre-season training by Coach Seibold, it made perfect sense to nominate Walker and Reynolds as the players best suited to the experience. Something which Coach Peters was all in favour of.
“They’re our two dominant kickers,” Peter said. “Cody’s a left footer and Adams a right footer so it works well for us. For them to come over and see different techniques and being our main kickers we thought they’d get a lot out of that.”
For Reynolds himself, his role as halfback was a seen as a more transferrable position suited to the AFL arena alongside Walker’s spot as five-eighth.
“Between kicking and leadership myself and Cody are probably the main influences on the team back home,” Reynolds said.
“We get our hands on the ball the most and obviously wanted to come over here and learn a little bit which we have. No doubt we’ll take a bit of that back home.”
While kicking drills were the one of the major motivators for the pair, there was also a strong focus on a shared learning experience between the players and the codes, as stated by Reynolds.
“We’ve jumped in a few sessions with the boys,” Reynolds added. “We had a bit of boxing. We had a bit of kicking with the lads and they got us in the kicking drill there, got the points on us so it was all fun and games. We got them in the wrestling.”
“We taught them a little bit there today,” he grinned. “They were pretty keen to jump in and mix it around. They were very enthusiastic. It’s a very strong part of our game that’s sort of new to them. They enjoyed it and learnt even more.”
Being two different clubs from two separate leagues, it may appear difficult to draw some similarities between the two. For Reynolds, this is quite the opposite.
“The two clubs are very similar,” said Reynolds. “Both are foundation clubs who have won a stack of titles. There’s a lot of similarities between the players as well so that was surprising to me.
“I didn’t know a lot about Port Adelaide until I found out about the history. No doubt now I’ll keep an eye on the club and hopefully see some success.”
