"It's everything," Hinkley told reporters on Friday.

"As far as our football season goes here in South Australia, we need to win Showdowns.

"We won't shy away from the fact that this is as big a game outside of finals for us that we want to play in and want to win."

Hinkley's Power, a flag fancy, carry overwhelming favouritism into Saturday night's clash against the Crows, last year's wooden spooners.

But Hinkley points to the overall record between the foes: 24 wins each.

"Favouritism to win Showdowns doesn't matter. Ladder position doesn't matter. The team that wants it the most matters," he said.

Hinkley's former assistant Matthew Nicks is in his second-year as Adelaide's head coach. The pair get on well - away from footy.

"When they're the enemy, they're the enemy. And that is what they are: the enemy," Hinkley said, flanked by Nicks at a joint media conference.

Nicks makes no attempt to downplay the spicy rivalry.

"It is a big deal," Nicks said.

"There's some fantastic rivalries all over the world in all different sports. And this one of the best.

"We don't like them (Port) much."

The animosity runs 31-years deep.

In 1990, all SANFL clubs, including Port, agreed any South Australian entity in the AFL would be overseen by the SANFL.

But Port secretly went behind the SANFL's back and bid to enter the national competition itself.

When other SANFL clubs discovered the covert bid, they blocked it in court and, from that spat, the Crows were born - they entered the AFL in 1991 with Port following in 1997.

The first Showdown featured a punch-up between two players - Adelaide's Rod Jameson and Port's Scott Cummings - that is footy folklore.

In 2002, the night after another Showdown, a wild brawl erupted between about 20 players from both clubs outside the Ramgsate Hotel.

That fracas now forms part of Hinkley's lessons to current players about the stakes of a Showdown.

"We educate them, we give them an understand of what it is - we talk about the Ramsgate and it's on," Hinkley said.

"We all love the stories ... I wasn't any part of it but I love to hear the story about that. I love the rivalry.

"When I first got to Adelaide eight and a bit years ago, one of the first things that Sando (then-Crows coach Brenton Sanderson) said to me was 'the rivalries are real and they're big'.

"Our job is to make sure we educate our players and they understand, whether they're Victorians, whether they're West Australians ... they (Showdowns) are as big as they get for South Australian football."

Australian Associated Press