Connor Rozee is now the captain of Port Adelaide with the traditional #1 on his back, and got off to his best start to a season with two big performances in the first two Power matches of 2025. As a team, though, Port has started 1-3 against a fixture across the first month that they really should be doing better against. Today they come up against the ladder-leading Hawks whose midfield is without Will Day but is well stocked with role players and accumulators. Can he get back to his best and lead the team to a Gather Round victory? Much rests on his shoulders.
Connor Rozee is now the captain of Port Adelaide with the traditional #1 on his back, and got off to his best start to a season with two big performances in the first two Power matches of 2025. As a team, though, Port has started 1-3 against a fixture across the first month that they really should be doing better against. Today they come up against the ladder-leading Hawks whose midfield is without Will Day but is well stocked with role players and accumulators. Can he get back to his best and lead the team to a Gather Round victory? Much rests on his shoulders.
Connor Rozee sat out the later parts of last week's game with the dreaded conditions that has come to be known as hamstring awareness. Port Adelaide is not the only AFL club that has sought to obfuscate the nature of what is really a standard three-week hammy tear by using modern jargon to pretend it was something that it was not. Fantasy owners of Rozee with long memories have probably been burned before by this sort of club skulduggery.... but then they may also have wasted a trade on a premium player who played through a knock. Who can tell?
Connor Rozee can make any midfield in the competition look second-rate, as he did last week in a huge win over Essendon. One could argue that making the Dons engine room look second-rate is not that hard; nevertheless it was the most dominant individual display of the year so far. He has not yet reached the top echelons of fantasy midfielders because while his ceiling is sky high, his ability to accumulate on a day when things aren't going his way isn't so good. Like Josh Kelly, his best is some of the finest work you will see in the modern game.
Connor Rozee has been a popular pick in salary cap fantasy this year, often as part of a Fab Four including Josh Dunkley, Steven Coniglio and Tim Taranto as coaches load up on premium forwards. For some reason the same can't be said of his Power teammate Zak Butters, with a mid-season injury in 2022 likely the culprit there. They share the same attributes: inside mids at the right age to still have some upside who are the new leaders of their midfield brigade. Sometimes perceptions can overrule reality, as both of them are slight of body and susceptible to knocks. We shall see!
Connor Rozee has, along with Zak Butters, been given the keys to the Port Adelaide midfield engine room, making him a fabulous prospect for fantasy with his existing FWD designation. Butters has been there the whole season while it took until a few weeks ago for Rozee to join him, but with the Power dropping off this year in some major midfield KPIs the decision has obviously been made to invest in youth. Travis Boak is nearly into his twilight and Ollie Wines hasn't quite been right this year, so if the Pear are to do anything this year, it's on the backs of these two.
Connor Rozee has had a quiet start to 2021 interrupted by injury, allowing his fellow young gun Zak Butters to take the early headlines. With Butters now on the sidelines for an extended period, more responsibility will fall on Rozee to be the X factor for Port Adelaide... or should that be the Z factor? As a fantasy asset Rozee is not particularly reliable at this early stage of his career for weekly usage, but he has shown an enormous ceiling on the odd occasion where he dominates a game. Perhaps an outing against lowly Carlton will be his night.
Future bright for Rozee
It was no dishonour for Connor Rozee to finish second behind Sam Walsh for voting in last year's Rising Star, and he might even have more upside than the Blue when their careers are done. Booting 29.22 including eight multiple-goal outings, he reached 20 disposals only four times in a role that started very deep, without zoning up the ground for cheap marks very often. The main obstacle for Rozee to overcome on his way to being a consistently scoring fantasy forward is to increase his marking rate, something which may come with time as he learns when and where to lead in between the big bodies around him. As it is, his floor is too low to rely on him every week. Someone in your league will pick him late on potential alone.
A Rozee-cheeked cherub
The departure of Chad Wingard meant Port was on the look out for a ready-made small forward type at last year's draft, and they appear to have a good one in Connor Rozee. While he made his name primarily at half back in the SANFL where he played in North Adelaide's senior premiership side, his all-round skill set is also suited to a scragging forward role where he spent some time at the Championships for the title-winning SA team. The Power have too many options at half back and very few at the goalface, and sure enough it is in a forward pocket where it looks like Rozee is favourite to debut in round 1. He is going to be reasonably popular in salary cap formats, though probably on benches rather than as a starter because his powers of accumulation in that role appear weak. This makes him less than desirable in fantasy draft leagues, where he deserves a late flier at best.
