Port Adelaide midfielder Ollie Wines said he’ll be ready for the Power’s first game when the season resumes
After an injury-riddled 18 months, former Port Adelaide co-captain Ollie Wines said his shoulder is “flying” and he’ll be ready to play once the AFL year gets back underway.
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Midfield bull Ollie Wines says his latest rebuilt shoulder is “flying’’ and that he will be ready to slot straight into Port Adelaide’s AFL side when the season resumes.
Declaring he was one of the main benefactors of the AFL’s shutdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, Wines – who missed round one following off-season shoulder surgery – said he was medically cleared by his surgeon on Monday to play when football restarts.
“Twelve weeks post-surgery (Monday) was when the surgeon said he would give me the all-clear to play again,’’ said Wines, who is back at his family home in the northern Victorian town of Echuca.
“If footy was still going I would have tried to push it forward a couple of weeks with, as a professional athlete, accelerated rehab but with the way the situation is at the moment I don’t have to rush that.
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“I’ve been taking smaller steps and the shoulder’s pretty much back to 100 per cent and when footy starts again I’ll be ready to go.
“I’m a bit limited in being able to test it in contested situations at the moment but that time will come. It just means that I will have more recovery time before that needs to happen.’’
Wines said he felt “a little bit selfish’’ in saying that football’s shutdown – it is expected to resume mid-year – had come at a good time for him.
But he hopes it will see him miss just one AFL game when he could have missed a third of the season.
“Personally, out of a bad situation, it’s good that I’m not going to miss any more footy, just the one game that’s been played,’’ Wines told The Advertiser.
“If I’d rushed back earlier I would have lacked match fitness and needed a couple of runs in the SANFL.
“But now when footy comes back I’ll be on an even keel with everyone because the one round and couple of practice matches that I missed will be out of the system and everyone will be back to square one, so I won’t be disadvantaged.’’
Wines in February had pre-season shoulder surgery for the second consecutive year after dislocating his left shoulder in the last five minutes of a match simulation session at Alberton Oval when powerhouse teammate Sam Powell-Pepper landed on him in a contest.
“Pep’s probably the last person anyone wants landing on them because he’s quite heavy and is always going like a bull at a gate, so it wasn’t my lucky day,’’ he said.
Last year Wines had his right shoulder operated on after his infamous water skiing accident in Echuca.
He had previously had surgery on his left shoulder following a dislocation against St Kilda in round 18, 2015.
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“I’ve had a bone block inserted in the surgery that I’ve just had, so it’s almost impossible for it to come out again, touch wood,’’ Wines said.
“As far as my future is concerned I feel as strong as anyone and hopefully it stays like that for the rest of my career.’’
Wines, 25, played just 12 games last season after three separate injuries, starting with the waterskiing accident and followed by a broken leg and thumb.
He then endured a tumultuous off-season when he was linked with a potential trade to Carlton and then lost the co-captaincy in favour of Tom Jonas when Port decided to go back to its one-captaincy model.
His demotion to vice-captain was followed by his latest shoulder setback.
“There’s been a bit going on over the past two years but I ride the bumps, love what I do and love going to work with the boys every day,’’ Wines said.
“With what’s happened I’m 100 per cent ready to go for round two when football restarts and excited by our list and what we might be able to achieve.’’
Wines has been back in Echuca since two days after the AFL season was postponed on March 22.
He has resumed playing tennis on the family court with his mum, dad and 22-year-old brother Harry – “I’ve still got the family crown by a fair margin,’’ he said – and is undertaking three running sessions a week, gym work with “what equipment I have’’ and doing some mountain bike riding.
Meanwhile, Wines’ Power teammates and the Crows players who are out of South Australia may bypass Adelaide and head straight to where the AFL decides to set up a quarantine hub, should the league choose an interstate location.
Brisbane players who ventured interstate after the 2020 season was put on ice are starting to return to Queensland to prepare for the resumption of games.
The Advertiser understands that none of the Adelaide or Port Adelaide players who travelled interstate after the season was halted have been asked to make their way back to, or start preparing for a return to, their respective clubs.
Instead, the clubs are getting ready for their interstate players to be asked to return directly to whatever quarantined hub they are assigned to – particularly if Adelaide is not chosen as one of these hubs – and serve any required self-isolation period there.
Crows players Tom Doedee, Billy Frampton, Ben Crocker and Ben Davis, and Power players Sam Powell-Pepper, Xavier Duursma, Mitch Georgiades and Jack Watts all went back home interstate when the season was shutdown.
‘We have to back the experts on AFL restart’
Earlier this week, Port Adelaide chairman David Koch said AFL clubs have to go with whatever option to resume the season is given the all clear by health authorities and experts.
The AFL has pitched quarantined Olympic-style villages in states, including South Australia, to restart the 2020 season.
Under the plan put forward by AFL chief Gillon McLachlan all 18 clubs would be located in one or two regions of Australia, potentially even three, and split up into various villages within that hub.
Each village would essentially consist of a hotel that is solely dedicated to the AFL industry to enable the control of external people entering.
But SA Premier Steven Marshall has asked the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee to not only consider the risk profile of the hub model proposed by the AFL, but a more traditional home and away season.
Clubs such as the Crows and Power would be flown in and out of other states for matches on private flights to limit the risk of infection.
This would mean if a player from a club does test positive to COVID-19 then it could be isolated within just that club.
Koch said the industry needed to “take the option that is best for that time”, with the AFL set to announce its return to play plan in the week beginning May 11.
“I think as we have done with our governments and our health authorities, to take the advice of the experts and whatever they recommend, we have to make it work,” he said.
“The option that is best to get it back into our lives is the one that we have to support.”
The Advertiser approached the Crows for comment on the club’s view of the hubs or if it had discussed Marshall’s potential plan with the State Government.
It comes as Gold Coast’s access of a trio of training grounds next to Metricon Stadium and the easing of Queensland state restrictions bolstered its chances to be a hub.
The Gabba and Metricon Stadium would share the workload of six teams playing every five days, with the AFL understood to need two AFL venues with broadcast quality lights.
It is yet to be seen how much the lack of a second current AFL venue in Western Australia’s capital, Perth, and South Australia counts against those states.
Metricon also has three AFL-standard training grounds adjoining the stadium and resorts including Royal Pines and the Mercure Resort within minutes of the stadium.
The AFL’s players are broadly supportive of the hubs and returning to football but will be canvassed this week about the details, including how long they are happy to be in them for and whether they are prepared to leave families for an extended period.
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The AFLPA is awaiting more information about what those hubs look like before sending out a survey to the more than 800 men’s players, which will also cover questions on list sizes and a potential cut to the 2021 and 2022 salary caps.
Clubs believe they could be based in interstate hubs for the first suite of games before eventually descending on Melbourne for the end of the home-and-away season.
Teams that had not yet met in the first dozen matches of the recommenced season would need to finish their season against rival teams.
If all clubs were in Melbourne in the final weeks of the season it would allow them to cross over and fulfil their schedule requirements while also minimising interstate travel.
Koch backs Hinkley in
Meanwhile, Koch has virtually guaranteed Ken Hinkley will be coaching Port Adelaide next year.
While Hinkley has a finals clause in his contract to trigger a one-year extension for 2021, chairman Koch said that with the disrupted AFL season – and the Power’s emerging list – that might not come into the club’s reckoning.
“As far as I am concerned Ken will be coaching next year,’’ Koch said in a major show of faith in the club’s eight-year mentor.
“We are incredibly confident of the team that we have now got going forward.
“We have performance triggers in virtually all of the contracts with people who work for us because we are a performance organisation.
“Because that trigger clause is there it doesn’t mean it will be triggered at all.
“It just means there is an opportunity if the club agrees and wants to do it.
“My view is that Ken is in a great spot at the moment, the team is in a great spot.
“The work that he, in particular, has done in the past two years in terms of building our list, we could not be happier with it.
“So, I’m extremely confident that Ken will be coaching next year.’’
Hinkley was under pressure to get results this season after Port missed the finals in the previous two years.
After steering the club to the finals in his first two years in charge in 2013 and 2014, finishing fifth and third, popular players man Hinkley has led it to just one finals series since – in 2017 when it lost a home elimination final to West Coast in extra-time.
Hinkley in the pre-season bravely declared the Power could win this year’s premiership and it started the season with a bang, thumping Gold Coast on the road in round one.
But the season has been in limbo since because of the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting former AFL premiership stars, Port’s Kane Cornes and North Melbourne’s David King, to suggest the Power should make an early commitment to Hinkley for next year.
Koch did that on ABC SA Grandstand on Sunday, indicating the team would have to fall away completely when the season restarts to put the coach’s job in jeopardy.
Hinkley has been reluctant to discuss his future, saying “I’d prefer it didn’t get brought up at all to be honest’’.
“I know my situation, everyone knows my situation, it’s been put out there well and truly,’’ he said.
“I just need to go about my business and the club’s business, the best thing we can do is win games of football and see where we end up.’’