Family comes first for Ollie Wines but it took more time to adjust to footy life for mum and dad

JANE Wines talks like her son Ollie plays footy: Without pretension. She hated draft day but has come to love Port Adelaide.

JANE Wines talks like her son Ollie plays footy: Without pretension.

As Ollie doesn't shirk the hardball, mum doesn't shirk the hard conversation.

She's a bouncy personality, a mother of four, and her love for Ollie meant the initial AFL experience left her bitter, even frightened about what would happen to her boy as the AFL beckoned.

She'll tell you she hated draft day on the Gold Coast, where Ollie was selected No. 7 by Port Adelaide.

All the Wines family was in attendance: Mum, dad Tony, sisters Maddy and Sophie, Ollie and the tacker of the family, Harry.

Power must be slick, quick and brave

Ollie found out 10 minutes before the draft, Port Adelaide would choose him. The family found out minutes later.

"We were in shock,'' she said. ‘'Tony was in shock. Not shock, but he was losing Ollie so to speak. I didn't even know where Port Adelaide was, put it that way. Can I say that? I was like, where is Port Adelaide. I knew it was in Adelaide somewhere, but we didn't know about Alberton.

"And you know what else, this time last year, what had been in the papers with the poor boy who died (John McCarthy), all the tragedy that occurred. I remember reading the paper, sitting right there at the table, and I felt for the club and the family, but I was hoping he doesn't go there.

Wines family

"We thought we were in footy hell and now we're in footy heaven and I say that in the nicest possible way.''

A year past, a season continuing, and with 18-year-old Ollie playing with the angels on the MCG in an AFL finals series, mum couldn't be happier.

"He's in footy heaven. We are in footy heaven. From footy hell to footy heaven.''

Footy was supposed to be like this. Gun junior, committed, humble and having heaps of fun. He won best and fairests, played inter-league year after year, and finally was good enough to be drafted.

Schulz thankful for Tigers axing

And his first game was a bomb. He was picked for Round 1, as was is best mate Jack Viney who went to Melbourne, and he hasn't missed a game since, playing in the midfield against Scott Pendlebury, Joel Selwood, Gaz, Jobe Watson, and others.

He was 18. A boy from Echuca who finished his VCE exams on a Monday and was flying to Adelaide the following Monday, into the city of churches which might have been the city of lost souls, for all Ollie knew.

For Ollie, it was an adventure like no other.

For mum, it was an eye-opener into the world of professional sport.

Wines draft

It started before the draft when clubs visited the historic Wines family home on the Murray River, a decent torp away from where the Emmy Lou paddle-steamer is moored.

Port officials didn't visit, but nine others did.

"You open up the house, we're decent honest people, and you get them in here and they say things when maybe they shouldn't say things,'' mum said.

Man behind Power revival

They loved Hawthorn and St Kilda, she said.

"They said, ‘I don't know what will happen in your football career, and I don't know if you will be drafted'' — and that's what you need to hear because you've got a kid sitting here about to sit his VCE exams. And the best one was a man called Trout (St Kilda's Tony Elshaugh), he said, ‘but you're going to have a good life.' Hawthorn were like that to. But there were clubs who were the opposite. They'd say, ‘We'd sign you up now, you're going to be drafted'.

Ollie Wines

"There's no need for that. And it does get into your head. And then you think they deserve to stay in Victoria.''

She despised the Gold Coast draft experience.

"I call it subscription,'' she said. ‘'It's like the army. Ollie out of all my kids was the homebody. It was like the SWAT team and they extract him. We take him to the airport and we hand him over and they receive him.

"If someone came to me and they were going up there (Gold Coast) next year, I'd say, think about it. Unless you know where your son is going, you're best to sit in your lounge room and watch it on TV. They need to change it a bit.

"We weren't prepared, we were ignorant. We thought he would go to a Victorian club. He had done the hard yards, but it's not a fairytale like that.

"Football before the draft was fun. You got to choose. Once that draft happened ... it is barbaric up there. It is a meat market. The draft was the biggest shock to our system. It wasn't nice at all for us.''

The family met Port officials on the morning of the draft, again after the draft, and the next time at Melbourne airport, three days later.

Wines Showdown

At the airport, newly appointed assistant coach Alan Richardson put mum at ease. No, it was more than that. Richardson, a parent himself, gave Jane such comfort that retelling the story had her bursting with whatever mums burst with when they know their child will be OK.

"He was brilliant,'' she said. ‘'He said a few words to me, he reassured me, he said something like he, too, was leaving his family, leaving his wife and kids to go over there. He said in soft words, ‘Jane, he's going to be all right'.

Tears? ‘'No, I held it until the I saw the plane leave,'' she said laughing. ‘'And then I looked like a crazy woman. I was howling. I was terrible. Tony was shattered. Ollie was like his shadow. Tony knew if he stayed in Victoria he would see him more. Now it's not like that.

"But initially ... parents don't go to draft school, you don't know anything, you have to learn it all yourself. And there's a lot of fear. They're kids. Ollie wasn't even shaving. He had just finished his VCE exmas, he had four days off, he was up there on the Gold Coast, he was home and then he was gone. And his room was empty.''

The tears are long gone. The heartbreaking ones, anyway. Now there's tears of pride.

The family sat in the city end forward pocket for the Collingwood final, the same end Ollie roosted a 50m goal in the third term, as did Ollie's new great mate Chad Wingard. The game-killer in the final quarter, a curling snap out of traffic form 30m, had the family going bananas.

Wines win

It's a cliche, but good things happen to good people.

And Ollie Wines was a good kid.

Mum says he's quiet until he gets to know you and, with a sense achievement for a mother, says, in order, it's family, friends and then football.

"He's very family,'' she said. "He has heart like Phar Lap.''

Not about the way he plays, but the way he conducts himself. ‘'He's all heart, he has a good heart. Footy is pretty high at third, but family is out of the sky.''

The walls of the family home are besieged by photographs, kids drawings, articles and an array of family mottos and sayings that leaves you questioning your own worth.

Dad was from Avoca — he played footy for Avoca and Anglesea — and mum was from Maryborough. A long story short, when Jane finished her nursing at the Bendigo Base Hospital, she moved to Melbourne and she and two girlfriends moved into a house with Tony. And one thing led to another and a couple of years down the track, they were expecting their first born, Maddy.

Jane proposed to Tony in the Bourke St Mall on Christmas Eve, they were married in 1987, and moved to Echuca because initially Tony had work there and ultimately they wanted to bring their kids up in the country.

Today, grandpa lives on the same property in his own residence, Maddy, 22, is a cadet at the Bendigo Advertiser.

"We call her Maddy from the Addy,'' mum smiled, Sophie, 20, is the free spirit, "she's the gypsy,'' Jane said and she's not over fussed about watching Ollie playing footy and Harry, of course, is the younger brother beaming with pride.

In Adelaide, Ollie lives with the parents of teammate Paul Stewart and is great mates with Wingard, Jake Neade, Jackson Trengove and of the older crew, Jay Schultz.

"Jackson Trengove has been a magnificent mentor and so has Jay Schulz. Jay is what you see is what you get, the same as Olly,'' mum said.

Again, she knew her son would be cared for when she and Tony flew to Adelaide for parents day.

"When we went over their the first week, I was worried about where he was living. That's a mother thing and the Stewarts have been sensational. And Ken Hinkley gets it. He said to me quietly, ‘'if he's not happy where he's living, he can live with me''. That's so nice to hear.''

And chairman David Koch is, well, he's just bloody terrific.

"We went to his home, all the parents who were there at the Sydney game. We knew this is the environment you want you son in. I've got nothing to nothing to compare it to, but it's absolutely spectacular. I try to find a fault to give me a reason, but it's just magnificent to us.''

Tony wasn't home this week. He flew to Helsinki for at 6.30am on Monday and is scheduled to arrive in Melbourne early for the game.

"He has a day and half to do his business and then flies back. It's a cracker,' Jane said. ‘'I will pick Harry up from Shepp, Maddy and Soph will go down form Bendigo and we'll do it again as a family.

"I can't tell you how happy we are.

"It could not be better for Ollie. If he had gone to a Melbourne team, it would've been a disaster, it's a fish bowl. And here we were hoping he would go to a Melbourne club.

"I could pay Port Adelaide for having him and doing what they've done for him.

"He is a kid, just 18, and this is full on ... and I shouldn't have said it, but I don't think he was shaving.''