Wines is fit to play but needs some luck and good form in the SANFL to win back his AFL place
Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley says his non-selection of co-captain Ollie Wines is about rewarding last weekend’s winning 22 and his co-captain is simply unlucky to miss out.
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Ken Hinkley was steadfast in the face of nine questions in four minutes to open his weekly press conference on Friday when he finally ran out of ways to explain why co-captain Ollie Wines was not picked to play Sydney on Saturday.
“I’m fascinated by your fascination why Ollie is not playing,” he told reporters at Adelaide Oval.
“How many games has he played? It’s absolutely relevant. If you’re not understanding I can’t explain it any better, sorry.”
Just moments earlier Wines had trained with his Power teammates and moved freely. Hinkley said he was fit and there were no issues with his conditioning since he broke his thumb in the Round 17 loss to Brisbane.
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But when the team as a collective — and as Hinkley highlighted the midfield — performed so strongly to beat Essendon by 59 points last week, not even the co-captain is a walk up start.
“The critical part is we played really well as a team last week, while Ollie is an important part of our team no doubt about that, but when the team plays as well as it does we select the boys who did the job,” Hinkley said.
“Ollie knows that, Ollie’s been a part of that in the past, he understands that. Would he much rather be playing? Yeah he would.
“It’s not fitness. Ollie would be able to play and play somewhere near his best, but I’m respectful of the team, the way we played last week and the balance of the team was right. Some parts of the team didn’t absolutely fly last week but collectively we had a pretty strong performance.”
Still the questions came. So there’s no room for Wines in the 22 right now?
“Not at the moment because he’s had an interrupted season. He’s absolutely fit,” Hinkley said.
Another question. Then how does he get back in?
“He gets a bit of luck and unfortunately someone else misses out,” Hinkley said.
“Let’s not get confused because I think you’re trying to angle it that Ollie is not in our best 22, that’s not quite right, he’s had an interrupted season and if I go through it, he’s played nine games for the year, he came off a dislocated shoulder, he’s broken his leg and broken his thumb.
“Is he perfectly primed to play? We would have liked to see him play but we’re perhaps looking after him as much as we should.
“The likelihood is he will be in our team sooner rather than later but this game is a combative game and injuries happen.”
While not completely ruling out a late change to play the Swans, it appears almost certain Wines will return to footy with the Magpies in the SANFL on Sunday — alongside Scott Lycett and Dougal Howard who are also first-choice players but are being made to earn their senior spots back.
And that, according to Hinkley, sends a message to the rest of the team that if you perform you will be rewarded at selection whether it’s in the AFL or SANFL.
“I would have no hesitation playing Ollie tomorrow but the team played really well last week, that’s what we’ve got to understand, the team played really well,” he said.
“So Ollie misses out, that’s just a it of bad luck, it’s not that he’s not a great player and our joint captain, I think we represent the team more than the individual as best we can.
“It’s exactly what we hope, that we reward good form, and if we reward good form as often as we can, it makes this club much stronger.”
It appears the collective performance of the team and the forwardline has bought Charlie Dixon another week after he was goalless from five disposals against the Bombers.
“Let’s not be silly, Charlie didn’t have his greatest game last week individually but we kicked 126 points and that’s a fantastic return to form for us in scoring,” Hinkley said.
“So Charlie, Paddy, Todd, Connor, Zak, Sam, Cam, all those forwards collectively did a great job — and our mids — it went a bit unsighted that our mids also hit the scoreboard which makes you a good team.”
Hinkley has no concerns over his team’s height for the Sydney game by backing in his mobile talls Todd Marshall, Peter Ladhams, Paddy Ryder and Dixon all in the same team. But he said the team was aware it needed to play smart football if the rain comes.
“That’s more on our radar, we’re aware we haven’t played our absolute best football when it’s been wet, particularly at home,” he said.
“We’ve played well if we go back to the West Coast game in the wet in Perth, but the last couple of games here we haven’t adjusted as quick as we needed to.
“It’s pretty simple, you take territory if you can, you don’t over-use the ball if that’s an option for you, our game is based around playing front half footy anyway so if we can get it in there and lock it in there, you’re going to have to continually work at scoring because it’s a difficult day for that.”