Early count has Port Adelaide winning on its trade of club champion Chad Wingard to Hawthorn
Port left its fan base questioning the call to trade club champion Chad Wingard to Hawthorn, particularly after being stung by Shaun Burgoyne’s move. But the Power have already scored an early win.
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Port Adelaide football boss Chris Davies had a sense of destiny — more so than humour — in the off-season when he assigned teenager Connor Rozee the Power’s No. 20 jumper.
The Port Augusta kid is always to be the player who replaced Chad Wingard. So if Rozee is to be cast as filling Wingard’s footsteps at Alberton, he might as well have Wingard’s hero-worshipped guernsey.
Nine games into the 2019 premiership race, the image created by Rozee in that No. 20 jumper is of his own making … rather than cast by Wingard’s once-heavy shadow.
Nine matches — and the Rising Star nomination after a five-goal show against Brisbane at the Gabba in his third game. At 19 (plus 74 days), he also replaced 2004 premiership captain Warren Tredrea as the youngest Port Adelaide player to kick five or more goals in an AFL game (by 62 days … and four games).
Selection at half-forward in the AFL fantasy State-of-Origin SA squad. And leading the Port Adelaide goalkicking chart (13). It is some resume.
By comparison — and there always will be the comparison, more so on the eve of the first Power-Hawks game since the trade — Wingard had 3.8 after his first nine AFL games and was not a Rising Star nominee until his 18th match in 2012.
No trade should ever be judged until the final tallies are in.
After a sensational five-goal performance, Connor Rozee is the round three @NAB AFL Rising Star nominee! Congrats, Connor! âï¸ pic.twitter.com/FucgO1H6ps
— AFL (@AFL) April 8, 2019
Even so, Port Adelaide will always remain behind from its last super star trade with Hawthorn — in October 2009 when premiership midfielder Shaun Burgoyne sought a new start away from home, dodgy knee and all. Three flags at Hawthorn, 206 AFL games (after 157 with the Power) and a “Hall of Fame” reputation underline — with a very thick marker — how the Hawks won in that trade.
The Burgoyne and Wingard trades are strikingly similar.
Port Adelaide scored two first-round draft picks (Nos. 9 and 16) and a South Australian sent home (Jay Nash from Essendon) while getting a third club to close the Burgoyne trade.
The Power gained a first-round draftee (Hawthorn defender Ryan Burton) and a first-round draft pick (No. 15) — plus second-round No. 35 — before tempting a third club, Brisbane, to sweeten the Wingard trade.
Burgoyne became Andrew Moore (55 games with Port Adelaide) and Jasper Pittard (126) plus Nash (eight matches). Win — undisputed win — to Hawthorn.
Wingard has become Burton, Rozee, midfielder Xavier Duursma and another come-home defender, Sam Mayes from Brisbane. It is difficult to imagine the Power not continuing to win from this deal. Only Mayes has not played AFL for Port Adelaide, so far.
Burton, Rozee and Duursma appear the classic 10-year, 200-game players every AFL recruiting chief seeks. The Burgoyne episode is unlikely to repeat.
“Hats off to (coach) Ken (Hinkley) for making such a big move,” says Port Adelaide co-captain Tom Jonas. “But you can see the benefit of it.
“Chad was such a talent,” adds Jonas of the Power’s 2013 club champion, 2015 and 2016 leading goalkicker and All-Australian in 2013 and 2015.
“So to see him traded came as a bit of a shock. But the club was looking for improvement — for the best of the playing group, the whole group. It was not just about having talent.”
No one disputes Wingard’s talent. But at the end of last season — as the Power dealt with the consequences of an 11-4 start collapsing to a finals miss — Port Adelaide’s end-of-season reviews were to challenge the status quo at Alberton.
Wingard was asked to change, in particular with his mood and attitude at and to training. There were five feedback sessions, including one with club chief executive Keith Thomas.
Always a precocious — and difficult — star who declared no interest in football when he was off the field at weekends and had created divides at Alberton last year, Wingard did not take the hint.
And everyone at Alberton knew Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson and Hawks list manager Graham Wright wanted Wingard. As soon as Wingard declared his preference for the Hawks — rather the eager suitors at the Western Bulldogs — there was no turning back.
At 25, Wingard could still finish his Hawthorn chapter with significant personal and team success. The challenge for Wingard is to take note of why Port Adelaide put him on the trade table.
But at Alberton, Burton, Rozee and Duursma are leaving the Power with no regret. And those kids who shed tears in seeing Wingard slip out of their No. 20 replica jumpers have an instant new hero in Rozee.
STOCKTAKING THE WINGARD TRADE
OUT
CHAD WINGARD
TO Hawthorn.
Aged 25, the midfielder-forward could be at the prime of his AFL career — after an impressive start with the Port Adelaide club champion title in his second season (2013); and All-Australian honours in his second and fourth years. Played 147 games and kicked 232 goals for Power. Was No. 6 pick in 2011 national draft.
PICK No. 6
TO Brisbane (on-passed to Gold Coast).
Suns drafted 200cm swingman Ben King, who made his AFL debut — against Port Adelaide — at Adelaide Oval on Sunday.
PICK No. 35
TO Brisbane (became 40).
Lions opted for West Australian midfielder Tom Joyce. He is yet to make his breakthrough to AFL ranks.
IN
RYAN BURTON
Aged 22, the versatile half-back has returned to his SA home after appearing destined — and eager — to be a one-club player at Hawthorn. Made a strong impression across the league in his second season (2017) to be the runner-up to Essendon novice Andrew McGrath in the Rising Star award. Played 47 games and kicked five goals for Hawks. Was No. 19 pick in the 2015 national draft.
CONNOR ROZEE
Far from the steak knives, the North Adelaide premiership player was the grand bonus in Port Adelaide’s trading of Chad Wingard. In parcelling its own No. 6 pick and Hawthorn’s No. 35 call, Brisbane — needing draft picks to close its Lachie Neale trade — advanced the Power to No. 5.
Aged 19, Rozee has quickly filled the gap left by Wingard as a dangerous half-forward — and immediately given the fans a new hero.
Duursma brings out the bow & arrow ðŸ¹ðŸ¹ðŸ¹ pic.twitter.com/gAQZZSnVdP
— 7AFL (@7AFL) April 26, 2019
XAVIER DUURSMA
Another bonus of the Wingard trade. Aged 19 — son of former Melbourne-listed half-back Dean and nephew of Melbourne grand final defender Jamie — Duursma was claimed with Hawthorn’s late first-round draft pick. His speed and clean ball play has many noting Port Adelaide was making a statement in handing the Victorian the No. 21 jumper worn by wingman Craig Bradley in the 1980s.
SAM MAYES
Originally a No. 8 draftee from North Adelaide in 2012, Brisbane added Mayes — in a go-home play — to the parcel as the Power and Lions swapped first-round draft picks. Aged 25, Mayes played 101 games in many roles — beyond defence — in six seasons with Brisbane.
ON HOLD
Port Adelaide, Hawthorn and Brisbane closed the Wingard-Burton-Neale trades with third and fourth-round draft picks to be used in November’s national draft.
Wingard’s tough start as Hawk
Chad Wingard savaged the football culture of Adelaide — and the city’s media — as he left Port Adelaide.
But if escaping the “fish bowl”, as Wingard called Adelaide, for the football-mad and diverse Melbourne was supposed to provide the comfort and inspiration to recharge a stalled AFL career, the first chapter at Hawthorn has delivered just more of the same.
Wingard’s pre-season was stalled by a calf injury — and telling remarks from Hawthorn players reinforcing the big-name recruit needed to earn respect in their clubhouse.
The first game in brown-and-gold — against North Melbourne at the MCG in Round 3 — highlighted the way Wingard can turn an AFL game as he had three shots on goal and scored 2.1 in the last term to turn a one-point match into a 16-point win.
But Wingard’s most-recent game for Hawthorn — the Round 7 five-point loss to Melbourne at the MCG — took Wingard from a “fish bowl” to a “scolding bath”. No goal, just 14 touches, a dropped mark that would have set up a match-winning goal … and the images of his Hawthorn team-mates lecturing Wingard at half-time were followed by scathing reviews.
Essendon goalkicking great Matthew Lloyd led the questioning on how talent is not always backed up by performance with Wingard.
“There’s more sizzle than sausage with this man,” Lloyd said.
“The sizzle looks good, but deep down at the end of the day he doesn’t do a lot. That’s the thing about Chad Wingard.
“He’s got the odd highlight where he sparkles up and you think, ‘this looks good’. But at the end of the day, he just does not do enough.
“He’s been an All-Australian, but he’s got to do the little things. That’s what the great players do, they do the one-percenters well. They’re clean, they don’t make errors like Chad Wingard does.”
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au
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