Russell Ebert could have had a house full of collectables from his playing career, such was its greatness.

But the four-time Magarey Medallist is not one to hoard footy memorabilia.

In fact, he owns just one guernsey from his playing career that spanned 416 senior games including 392 at Port Adelaide.

It is his 1977 guernsey. The guernsey he wore the day he first lifted the Thomas Seymour Hill Trophy as captain of a Port Adelaide premiership side.

On Saturday, Port Adelaide will pay tribute to Russell and his men of ’77 when the Power take on the Bulldogs wearing a replica of that one guernsey Russell has hung onto for the past 30 years.

On Tuesday, Ebert brushed the No. 1 guernsey off and even put it on one more time at the launch of the Power’s ’77 replica guernsey.

Ebert told PortAdelaideFC.com.au this week why that one guernsey meant so much.

“It’s the only lace-up jumper I’ve kept I’ve given all the others away to charities and to other people who I thought deserved them.” Ebert said.

“That’s the only one I’ve kept because I just believe that achievement (winning the 1977 premiership) was the best by the club for such a long time.

“It had been so long between premierships which was just not the accepted result down at Port Adelaide.

“I’d played in losing grand finals in ‘68, ’71, ’72 and ‘76 and I hadn’t played in a winning grand final and I’d been at Port Adelaide since ’68.

“We got flogged in ‘76 after being the dominant team and club for the year. Every award that you could win we’d won. And then Sturt belted us in the grand final so ‘77 was the culmination of all that disappointment and failure by the club in making four grand finals and not winning.”

The 1977 grand final was against Glenelg at Football Park on September 24.

The Tigers led by five points at the first break, then it was the Magpies by 10 points at half time, nine points at three quarter time and eight points when the final siren blew.

It was considered one of the great SANFL grand finals and was reported in the press that “longtime followers could not remember a tougher first half”. The half finished with an “all-in brawl” involving 20 players which the paper reported was started by Port Adelaide ruckman John Spry and Glenelg’s Graham Cornes and the police helped break it up.

Ebert clearly remembers the heroic acts of his teammates that day.

“We lost Kym Kinnear (in the second quarter), he was knocked out and not going to take any further part in the game,” Ebert recalls.

“We lost Ivan Eckermann to a badly corked thigh early in the game. He strapped that up and came back on and kicked three goals. He started off in the back pocket and ended up up forward.

“So there were individual feats of courage and going through pain barriers and going through probably negative thoughts from the previous year, ‘is another one going to slip by?’ So there were all those emotions and all those heroics on the day.

“For that group it really was a statement that we would just do anything we possibly had to to win that game.

“Glenelg had a wonderful team. They were individually very skilful and as a team were hard and strong, very, very similar to us. It was the best two teams over the year and both deserved to win but only one could win on the day.

“We were just that desperate and that hungry and determined to win. I think that got us over the line.”

So when the Power run onto the Telstra Dome on Saturday wearing the guernsey that arguably the club’s greatest ever player is most fond of, it will be a special moment.

The connection between the players of the past – like the warriors of 1977 – with the club’s current players will never have been greater.

“I’ve enjoyed the heritage rounds,” Russell said. “It’s good to connect the current day Power players with the jumpers and numbers of players who have represented the club previously, particularly in premierships.

“A lot of our current Power players haven’t played in a premiership so it just connects them and makes them appreciate the jumpers and numbers that were worn and the success the club has had in the various heritage jumpers.

“This one of course is really, really special to me because I was fortunate to be captain of that side on the day and to see that jumper run out is going to be really special.

“It’s a special jumper with the 100 years of the SANFL (on it) too.

“To see that jumper run out and remember all the heroics through the year and on the day, yeah that will be something I look forward to.”

• Be transported back in time by downloading six pages of newspaper scans from the morning after the 1977 grand final at PortAdelaideFC.com.au’s Heritage Round page. There’s match reviews, photos, player quotes, opinion pieces, full stats from the game and lots more.