PORT Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley is adamant Mitch Georgiades is happy at the Power - but he won't rush the key forward into re-signing.
Georgiades is out of contract at the end of the season and both West Coast and Fremantle are keeping a close eye on the Perth-born 21-year-old in the hope they can lure him home.
The 192cm spearhead has endured a tough year, falling out of favour earlier this season before tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee while playing in the SANFL in April.
The Power (12-2) sit second on the ladder on the back of an 11-match winning streak and were given a further boost this week when Victorian Miles Bergman re-signed with the club for a further two years.
Hinkley hopes Georgiades will follow suit.
"We've seen examples of our players wanting to stay," Hinkley told reporters on Friday.
"Mitch is slightly different based on the fact he now has a serious knee injury that he's dealing with.
"We need to give him the fullness of time to make sure he's got all the information he needs.
"Let's let him recover from his knee. It's not a rush for Mitch and it's certainly not a rush from us as a club.
"But we're extremely confident that Mitch loves being at our football club."
Hinkley expects 32-year-old spearhead Charlie Dixon to re-sign later this year.
"I'd be staggered, staggered if Charlie Dixon wasn't playing next year," Hinkley said.
But for now Hinkley is more focused on ensuring his team don't become the latest victim of the AFL's bye curse.
Teams are a combined 2-11 coming off a bye - with the only two wins coming in games in which both teams were off a bye.
Port had the bye last week and they will be aiming to buck the losing trend when they take on Essendon at the MCG on Saturday night.
"The mature thing to do is talk and be honest enough to know that it's somewhat real," Hinkley said of the bye stat.
"It's part of what has gone on. There's lots of reasons for different things.
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"But if we just sat back and looked at the results and said, 'did many of those results surprise us', I'm not sure there's a terrible amount of those results that went against what it should have been.
"There might have been one or two but most of the favourites got up.
"We're confident we can play good footy straight out of the bye."
Port will be boosted by the return of Junior Rioli (illness), while the sixth-placed Bombers (8-6) could use Dylan Shiel (foot) as the tactical sub after naming him as one of four emergencies.
