INTERVIEW: Darcy Byrne-Jones - 07 April 2026

Port Adelaide defeated Richmond by 42 points on Saturday afternoon.

It was Easter Saturday and the eggs were all in their basket afterwards.

A man who had 26 disposals, but went back to half back after being in the forward line

for a couple of years now.

Does he burn Jones?

Welcome.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

I mean, did you enjoy going back there?

Was it all a little bit familiar?

It took a little bit to get used to it again on trying that during the week, but game days

at a different base, but after the first quarter, I felt pretty comfortable and earlier

was marking everything, which made my job on the ground a bit easier.

Did the coaches come on to you pretty early and say we're going to do this because?

Yeah, Cory.

Cory, let me know throughout the week, so I was able to get my head around it and spend

a bit of time with the coaches and a training, getting used to it.

Yeah, it's a good fun on a different challenge, compared to the last few years, but I enjoyed

it.

I thought Richmond really took the game up to us.

I thought their pressure was excellent, and they won a keystats like Clearances contested

ball, Grand Ball gets, and then I would imagine half time there was a serious cat to the midfield.

Yeah, yeah, Cory didn't mint you words.

He sort of let us all know that we had to lift around the contested side of the game,

and I thought we were able to do that.

I mean, the second half and in comparison to the week before, where when we were challenged,

we probably didn't make the challenge, I thought we sort of responded reasonably well

in comparison, yeah.

Oh, the halftime numbers, after halftime we're excellent, and we won all those keystats,

which was important, no doubt.

But it was certainly an error ridden game, especially that first half of them.

We had a year high, 72 turnovers, Richmond had 79 turnovers, so it wasn't great in their

area, but that's where senior players like yourself.

I think we had 8 over 100 in that team.

It's important that you guys continue to play well and clean those errors up.

Yeah, definitely something that we spoke about as a senior group about, you know, doing

our job, and if we're not composed and we're turning the ball over, then we can't expect

the less experienced guys to be doing any better, so we've got to lead the way.

Yeah, just I think stay calm when games like that are happening, we're not going right

and you're turning the ball over, panic can sort of set in a little bit, so we're just

going to, you know, try and stay calm as we can and help the younger boys improve.

Yeah.

Yeah.

David, John, want to just go back, you mentioned you had to go back because what was the

because?

Well, that was a bit of a part of it was getting a little bit more experienced down

back.

We've got some guys that haven't played a lot of free together, so you know, Kari just

wanted a senior head down there along with Alia, yeah, just to keep things composed,

because when you get goals kicked on you and back kind of seeing it can feel like the

end of the world when in reality, it probably isn't, so we had to get some experience down

there was important.

Well, you certainly did that as Timmy said, 26 disposal was 10 marks, 16 and 10, you've

mopped it up brilliantly with Alia, I think he had 18 in a set.

So do I assume that this is a one off or this is your new role or is it weak by weak?

Oh, you have to find out mate, some day, some day night against and killed her.

Okay.

He's put his hand up to stand the side weighing in the miller.

That was good of you mate.

Yeah.

I know about that.

That's a tough job.

That's a tough job.

That's a tough job.

That's a tough job.

Back down back.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it didn't have to be sold to you.

I mean, you'll do what you're told to do because you're that sort of player.

So it doesn't sound like it's a one off.

So the question of that then is, is what's easier for the back or where would you rather

be?

I don't know about, I don't know if one's easier.

Look, I'm happy to play obviously wherever car he wants me and that's forward.

I think the highs are probably a bit higher, you know, you can go and you feel pretty good

about yourself.

But then you can run around for the rest of the game and have three or four touches

whereas down back, you probably get your hands on the footier a little bit more and

feel a little bit better about yourself.

But yeah, so it's not that you can go though.

Yeah.

You can sneak down and do that.

We know you can do it.

Do you feel the teams got their contests back?

Can you put that in the bank now?

Is that still going to be something you've got to work on as a collective?

I think you've certainly just stopped focusing on contests.

Correct.

On the ball, then it's probably going to drop off.

So we're going to check off and say, we're back.

We'll focus on it going every game because you can't survive if you don't, if you don't

win around the contest and, you know, don't win your share of the ball.

You mentioned about the back line, perhaps being a little young and inexperienced.

Josh Lai, though, continues to impress.

Yeah, he's been good, Josh.

He's developed, raised really quickly, so obviously coming in from, like, local footies,

last days and he's improved a lot and, you know, he's a really strong athlete.

You know, when he jumps at the footies, hard to stop, so I just got a couple of boys just

marrying me through the, through the window yesterday, um, close your eyes.

Yeah, I just didn't know in the office and the boys had just, yeah, they had to do it.

We've got a gather around clinic coming up, so that is funny.

God, I love footballs.

I've got St. Kielder.

Very mature, a bunch.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I'm sure I was there.

You got St. Kielder Sunday night.

They've only had the one win from four, which there were a lot of pre-season hype.

Do you guys get back?

They've had a buy.

You got back to that Brisbane loss, 33 point loss and review that one.

Yeah.

We'll certainly have a look at that and then have a look at the whole picture of how

this played for them for the month of footy and, you know, how, how they move the ball,

how they disband all that stuff and get a picture of how they look.

I think one or three probably doesn't reflect them.

I think they're certainly strong side and, you know, they'll challenge us and hopefully

we can challenge them and even more.

Exactly.

Kane Ferrell just rolled an ankle before half-time a note.

He came back, complied how has he pulled up?

Yeah.

I think he'll be fine.

Right.

That's good news.

Anyone else back this week?

It's a big one, isn't it?

These gather rounds.

DBJ?

Yeah.

Tony Marshall will be pushing this case.

It's up.

Yeah.

Cool.

So if he gets through training, we've got a couple of training sessions this week with

the longer break.

I'm sorry, Pete.

Maybe we're going to go amongst the big game gather rounds, everyone's supplying.

That's a sensational week.

Don't worry about that.

Gather round in South Australia.

And it's going to be finished off by Port Adelaide taking on St. Kilda, Darcy Bernjones.

Good luck.

Cheers, guys.

Thank you.

Often he goes to get the lake east of chocolate.

Yes, indeed.