Port Adelaide’s internal trial game at Alberton Oval was a showcase of the Power’s huge list of young players. It was fitting then that all the Family Day activities that surrounded the big match were also all about the young ones.

Thousands of young Power supporters took their chance to get up close to their Power heroes on Friday evening at Alberton Oval at the club’s annual family day.

After watching the younger ‘red team’ defeat their more experienced ‘home team’ opposition by 20 points in the internal trial, you could feel the buzz around the ground.

Joining in the excitement was Power coach Mark Williams who talked of the hunger in his squad.

“Because there’s so many young players and there’s players who played five or ten games last year who haven’t really played much AFL footy, they’re thinking ‘gee I’m in with a chance here’ so that’s probably why the ‘Reds’ did so well tonight... and hopefully they do well on Sunday (referring to Adelaide United in the A-League grand final).”

The excitement continued right throughout the day and night at Alberton.

Upstairs at The Port Club was transformed into ‘Planet Teal’ that included heaps of balloons and streamers for kids, images projected on the walls and the Power’s PlanetTeal.com.au website for kids on laptops for everyone to play with.

At half-time in the game, Dom Cassisi, Nathan Lonie, and Matt Thomas (who didn’t play) joined Olympic cycling gold medallist Anna Mears, Adelaide Thunderbird Tanya Obst and McLeods Daughters star Luke Jacobz in a ‘footy race’.

Also at half-time, Nova 91.9’s Lisa Fernandez talked about her love of the Power and how she was hoping to get stuck into her fellow breakfast show host and former Crows player Ryan Fitzgerald this year.

After the game, Da Klinic kept the younger and older kids entertained with all things hip hop including break dancing and beat boxing.

Kids 4 Life had the young ones enthralled with their great songs and interaction on stage, with a particularly strong Power theme.

Mark Williams introduced the new players on stage and presented them with their 2007 guernsey. He told everyone the club had big expectations for No. 5 draft pick Travis Boak, how Ryan Williams had surprised him in how well he’d played in the internal trial, that Nathan Krakouer was going to be the best No. 29 the club had had (having a dig at the guernsey’s previous owner Adam Kingsley), and reminisced about Robbie Gray’s impressive goal late in the trial game.

There was also a big autograph session and plenty of photos to make sure everyone went home happy and looking forward to Season 2007.