PORT Adelaide's newly appointed defence coach Nathan Bassett is excited to work with a group that he believes could become one of the League's leading backlines.

Bassett has returned to South Australia after two seasons as an assistant at Essendon.           

Matthew Nicks will relinquish his tutelage of the Power's defence and will take care of the forward line in 2016.

After a fine career at Adelaide, Bassett guided Norwood to back-to-back SANFL premierships, during which time he coached defender Tom Jonas, who is now also at the Power.

The pair will reunite and Bassett said the age and experience of Port's back six suggested big things were around the corner.  

"It's a good group. Soon after I got the job I met with Jackson Trengove in Melbourne and I've worked with Tommy Jonas before," Bassett said.

"It's an emerging group; there are guys in there in their early-to-mid 20s who have played a lot of footy together and I think best defences in the AFL are normally older defences, guys heading towards their late 20s. 

"There's some great things there as far as relationships and the amount of time they've spent together so far, that they can emerge into being a very good AFL defence." 

Bassett said his time at the Bombers – spent entirely in the shadow of the ongoing supplements saga – wasn't quite what he had expected when he moved from the SANFL to the elite stage. 

However he said the major positive to come from his time at the club was the experience of working in such a high-pressure landscape.

"It was a club that has been through a lot of difficult times the last three years and it was a challenging work environment at different times with stuff that other coaches haven't had to deal with," he said.

"It was good to learn how to work in an environment like that."

The former Crows defender is still commuting to Adelaide each week from Melbourne, where his family remains.

But he recently bought a house, which didn't go unnoticed by his new boss Ken Hinkley. 

"There was a nice moment the other week where I was bidding at an auction for a house on Saturday and Ken's rung me on Saturday night.

"I was like, 'What's he ringing me for?', thinking it'd be footy, and he's asked me how I went in the auction.

"So just those nice things that you don't always get from your boss at work."