Port road trip day two: Echuca is backing hometown hero Ollie Wines this weekend to beat Sydney in the preliminary final
Port Adelaide star and Echuca’s favourite son will be looking to break the Power’s preliminary final hoodoo, and his rural town will be backing him the whole way.
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It’s a big week in Echuca.
The local footy club will line up in three grand finals on Sunday and the green and white colours of the Bombers are already proudly on display throughout the town.
Before then though, it’ll be all about black, white and teal when favourite son Ollie Wines joins Port Adelaide in its attempt to break a preliminary finals hoodoo and beat Sydney at the SCG on Friday night.
Ollie is a proud product of the Bombers, and gravitates back to their home ground, only a couple of good torpedoes from the Murray River and a stone’s throw from the family home, whenever he gets a chance.
His mother Jane meets us at the oval when The Advertiser visits and can’t speak highly enough about both the Bombers and the importance of football and netball clubs to country communities.
As we watch the senior footballers leave the training track, it’s obvious the club has been a second home to Jane, 62, husband Tony, 65, and children Maddie, 33, Sophie, 31, Ollie, 29, and Harry, 26.
“This is … this is what’s driven him,” she says. “This place. I know I always tell the same story, but if he comes home, even now, 12 years in, this is where he’ll come.
“Even if no-one else is here, I’ll find him just sitting here, he will have run here or brought the dogs down and is here doing his bits and pieces.”
Former Carlton star Andrew Walker is joint coach of Echuca these days. Now 38, he stopped playing last year after a long and decorated career and will be coaching from the sidelines on Sunday as the Bombers’ senior team takes aim at its third Goulburn Valley Football League premiership in as many years.
The reserves are shooting for their third flag in the past few years and the under-18s hope to win their sixth flag of the past seven years.
It’s one of the powerhouse clubs of country Victoria, and part of a district which has also produced Melbourne aces Clayton Oliver and Jack Viney and West Coast jet Harley Reid.
Walker, whose 16-year-old son Cody is touted as a potential top 10 draft pick next year, is full of praise for both Ollie’s on-field achievements, which include the 2021 Brownlow Medal, and his character.
“He’s an outright star and just a genuine, good bloke from Echuca. So why wouldn’t you want to watch him,” Walker says.
Ollie has convinced the 202-game Blue to wear a Power guernsey while watching the game on Friday night and Walker will be barracking for Port to win through to the grand final.
It’s a sentiment shared by Ollie’s former teacher Kristine Oliver, who manages to round up a handful of students at his old primary school who barrack for Port Adelaide on the back of Ollie’s stardom.
“Ollie has been so grounded through the whole thing,” she says. “With all the attention, with the Brownlow, with playing, he’s just been so grounded and just been the same Ollie that he was.
“Regardless of his successes, it’s just great that he gives back to his community and remembers where he came from.”
Jane Wines will be part of a posse of about 12 of Ollie’s family and friends who will make their way to the SCG on Friday night.
She says that after losing three preliminary finals so far in his career, the time is right for Ollie, one of the older Port players with more than 250 games under his belt, to win through to the biggest day on the AFL calendar.
“He knows how to lose them,” she says. “His mother will tell him: ‘you know how to lose so you’ve got to be the compass, and you’ve got to show those young ones how to win one’.
“He’s ticked nearly every box, and his last one would be to get to a grand final and win an AFL premiership.
“He really deserves it. He really does. He’s a great kid, and he’s been faithful to his family, his town, his club and Port Adelaide.”
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Originally published as Port road trip day two: Echuca is backing hometown hero Ollie Wines this weekend to beat Sydney in the preliminary final
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