PORT ADELAIDE coach Ken Hinkley has labelled the return to football of vice captain Ollie Wines as “outstanding”.
Wines was among his side’s best, finishing with 25 disposals, six clearances and a goal as Port beat Fremantle by 29 points on the Gold Coast on Sunday night.
Wines was in the thick of the action at Metricon Stadium throughout the contest, which Port got on top of after booting five goals to no score in the second quarter.
“It was a great performance by Ollie,” Hinkley said in his post-match press conference.
“Plenty of people wanted to throw some strange questions around his selection in our football team, in our football club, but I couldn’t quite understand myself – he was outstanding.
“He was as best prepared as we could get him and that certainly, whatever else went on, at least he was prepared.
“He’d had some football, he’d had some training sessions and he didn’t come into this game lacking confidence, and that was really important for him.”
Hinkley’s side simply handled the wet conditions better than the Dockers, doing most of the damage when torrential rain set in during the second quarter.
It was then that Port went 22-2 for inside 50s, keeping Fremantle scoreless and turning a six-point quarter-time deficit into a 28-point – and eventually match-winning – lead at half time.
“We were just saying in the rooms, we can actually bring the rain to anywhere,” Hinkley joked.
“This afternoon it couldn’t have been a better day on the Gold Coast as far as weather and then the rain hit us.
“We handled the rain really well. I think we played our best footy when it was at its heaviest to be fair and then it became a bit scrappy and a bit slippery, but you couldn’t expect much from the team other than a five-goal win in tough conditions.”
Port dominated the territory battle and finished with 55 inside 50s to 34, continuing to force the ball forward at every opportunity, and repelling several Fremantle attacks in the second half.
“That’s our blueprint for the way we’d like to play – every team wants to play and dominate your forward half entries but we are really good at and have been really good at restricting entries against us for a long time, not just the first three weeks of this year,” Hinkley explained.
“We’ve got a model, we’ve got a method, and we like what it looks like and we know what it looks like when we play well and the boys know – that’s the key message – the boys understand what it looks like when they can get it right and they found again tonight when they get it right they’re a hard team to beat.”
The win means Port becomes the first of the travelling teams based in Queensland’s hub to claim victory since moving to the Gold Coast.
“We were really determined to come up here and make sure we got away to a good start to our time in the hub,” Hinkley said.
“We were looking forward to the opportunity to come and play, and I think we’ve certainly embraced the challenges that come with that but we prepared really well for the game and we’re really pleased to come away with the win.
“As far as I’m concerned, we’re here and we’re here to play football and we’ve come up here to win three games hopefully.
“Not too much changes, but where we stay.”
Young wingman Xavier Duurmsa was the big injury news out of the game after he hobbled off early in the third quarter with a hamstring injury.
Hinkley said he expected the teenager to have a scan tomorrow and miss around three weeks of football, but remain on the Gold Coast to rehab.
“It’ll just create an opportunity for us. We’ve got some really exciting players who haven’t played footy already this year at the AFL level and I’m looking forward to seeing at least one of them come in and play,” Hinkley said.
Port’s players will spend Monday recovering and reviewing the game with a six-day turnaround before facing West Coast on Saturday afternoon.
