Why Port Adelaide’s decision to name co-captains is starting to pay off
Port Adelaide broke with tradition by appointing Ollie Wines and Tom Jonas as co-captains. The controversial call has become easier to appreciate with the pair leading by example, writes Michelangelo Rucci
Understated from Port Adelaide’s home win against Sydney at the weekend is the strength that emerged in the much-contested leadership partnership between Ollie Wines and Tom Jonas.
At a time when the Power player group needed to make a statement — to stand up and deliver as an AFL top-eight finals contender — Wines and Jonas clearly set the agenda. They led with conviction to answer those lingering questions about whether Port Adelaide does have on-field leadership.
And Wines and Jonas, the precedent-breaking pairing of captains at Alberton, did so when Port Adelaide’s former captain (and proven on-field inspiration), Travis Boak, was heavily tagged by Sydney rival George Hewett at Adelaide Oval.
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Wines was — as Hall of Fame Legend Malcolm Blight always says of players who are kept in the reserves on the comeback from injury — “hungry” to prove a point after having put up his hand (the one that had the broken thumb) to play in Port Adelaide’s must-win game against Essendon a week earlier and Sydney on Saturday.
Midfielder Wines was certainly eager for his fill of the contest.
This was just the eighth time Wines and Jonas have played in the same team this season.
Injury — to both Wines and Jonas — has denied the co-captaincy pairing the chance to establish a routine and understanding of how two men lead the same bus at Port Adelaide.
They have played just eight of a possible 21 matches together. The win-loss count is 4-4 (with no pairing of consecutive wins).
Without Wines, Jonas has a 4-4 win-loss count as the solo captain (including two successive wins in rounds 1 and 2 when Wines was unavailable after his shoulder injury in his pre-season water skiing adventure on the Murray).
Without Jonas as he recovered from his calf problem, Wines has a 1-1 win-loss count as the lone skipper.
Without either Wines and Jonas in rounds 8 and 9, Port Adelaide is 1-1 this season with a loss in the first Showdown as Travis Boak stepped back into the captain’s role and a win against Gold Coast when the Power tapped young key position player Dougal Howard.
It is quite a mixed bag of results. With two captains in eight matches, Port Adelaide is 4-4. With solo captains in 12 games, the Power is 6-6. The classic 50-50 equation from a team that has been tagged as inconsistent this season and reflects such with its 10-10 win-loss record after 20 matches.
So, the argument for and against co-captains can be spun either way. It is a 50-50 debate on these figures.
But Saturday’s 47-point win against Sydney — in the wet (that had troubled the Power) and in search of consecutive wins for the first time since rounds 5 and 6 — was telling for Wines and Jonas setting the terms of engagement by their actions. They led by example, always a good theme at Alberton.
Not everyone in the Port Adelaide Football Club’s family — in particular a group of about 3000 members who chose to not renew their tickets this season — has embraced the co-captaincy. This broke with 149 years of tradition at Alberton where from 1870 until this season there had been just one captain — and from 1924, with Clem Keal starting the tradition, every captain (bar Geof Motley from 1959-1966 with his No. 17 jumper) has worn the No. 1 guernsey.
Wines has stayed in No. 16, Jonas in No. 42 — and the No. 1 jumper has been given a break this year. But what happens in Season 2020, Port Adelaide’s 150th anniversary season?
Does the Port Adelaide board seek to put the “toothpaste back in the tube” to appease the disenchanted members who have clearly made their point at Alberton, as noted by chief executive Keith Thomas’ recent email to the fans that promised to start listening again to their views?
Does one of the current co-captains sacrifice his place?
Does Port Adelaide go for a new solo captain, say Hamish Hartlett, the current vice-captain who had a delayed start to the season as he recovered from his knee injury?
Or does the football subcommittee at Alberton stand firm by its belief that times have changed in the all-demanding AFL scene — and Port Adelaide needs to adapt with co-skippers?
Wines and Jonas on the weekend gave Port Adelaide reason to believe there is indeed merit in its long-debated decision in the summer to go with co-captains.