ADELAIDE Crows great Scott Thompson has accepted a role as a development coach at Port Adelaide.  

It will be a homecoming of sorts for the recently retired 34-year-old who played his junior football at the Port Adelaide Magpies in the SANFL before being drafted to Melbourne in the 2000 NAB AFL Draft.  

"As a senior player it's natural to take on that sort of responsibility but it helped me realise I have a genuine passion to help young players get the best out of themselves," he said.

"Port Adelaide has an exciting group of young midfielders and I'm also looking forward to working closely with the likes of Ken Hinkley, Michael Voss and Matt Lokan – who I know well from my school and junior football days.

"It seems like a lifetime ago that I was finding my way as a youngster at Alberton but it’s a great feeling to be back where my footy began."

Power president David Koch tweeted earlier on Friday that Thompson would join former Collingwood wingman Matthew Lokan in returning to Alberton.  

Lokan will take the reins from Chad Cornes as coach of the Port Magpies.

"We all understand that in professional sport you have to take your opportunities wherever they may be. But it is so good to welcome back favourite sons Scott Thompson and Matthew Lokan to the@PAFC family," Koch said.  

There was speculation that Thompson was set to join Ross Lyon's coaching panel at Fremantle, or take a job in the media.  

Thompson played 308 games for Adelaide and Melbourne, and was the Crows' best-and-fairest winner in 2011 and 2012, and an All Australian in 2012.

The Power also announced former player Stuart Cochrane has taken up a role in charge of the club's next generation academies.