PORT ADELAIDE coach Ken Hinkley has praised the effort of stand in captain Ollie Wines in guiding the side past a plucky North Melbourne outfit in Hobart on Saturday afternoon.
Wines racked up game-highs for disposals (32), score involvements (12) and clearances (nine) to go with two goals.
The reigning Brownlow Medallist led the side in the absence of skipper Tom Jonas, who was forced to withdraw on the eve of the game after entering the AFL’s health and safety protocols, and Hinkley said while Wines wasn’t overly thrilled with his showing in a post-game interview, he played an important role in the 69-point win.
“He’s a harsh judge. He kicked 2.3, had 12 score involvements, the most touches on the ground and he was captain today,” Hinkley said after the game at Blundstone Arena.
“The key message to Ol was, as captain, it’s critical to play well and I think he did that well today.
“He led really well from the front and I thought Darcy (Byrne-Jones) in Tom’s absence, the boys did the right job for Tom.”
Port set up the win with a six-goals-to-one first quarter but was well held in the second and third terms as the Kangaroos turned the game into a scrap.
A seven goal last term added important percentage as the Power recorded its fourth win in a row, finishing 17.13 (115) to 6.10 (46) winners.
“It was a bit scrappy and untidy through the middle but the challenge down here is the ground was quite slippery even though it didn’t rain,” Hinkley said when asked to describe the game.
“North to their credit got some things going in the second and third quarters where it made it a bit more of a contest and I was really pleased that we were able to consolidate late in the game to put some scoreboard pressure and a significant gap on the scoreboard late in the game.
“You can sometimes lose your way in battles like this but our boys stuck at it pretty well.”
After starting the season with five consecutive losses, Port now sits just outside the top eight.
Hinkley said his side had held belief in its processes and stuck to the task despite the slow start to the campaign, and while not everything had been “solved”, his side had started to get reward for its work.
“We’ve got some personnel who’ve been in a bit better form, I think that’s really accurate,” he said of the turnaround in results.
“The three tall forwards are looking more of a threat as they go, we look a bit sharper and a bit quicker in the midfield and it was good to see Aliir start in the last half to get a bit of it.
“The start was frustrating and disappointing because we didn’t expect that to be our start like everyone else… (it was) incredibly resilient the way we stuck at it. We knew we had to keep working at it day to day, not from round 1 to round 5. We had to stay at it and it was pretty hard.
“We believed we could turn things around, we’re starting to and we’re certainly not solved but we’re better than we were.”
Port will next travel to Geelong to tackle the Cats and could have Jonas and Trent Dumont back from the health and safety protocols and have Orazio Fantasia back in the side, after he made the trip to Hobart to be the medical sub.
All-Australian Charlie Dixon is also close to playing his first game of the year after two rounds of ankle surgery, but Hinkley said the spearhead would not be rushed.
“We’ve been really clear with what we do about Charlie and that is to give him the best chance to succeed at AFL level,” he explained.
“Whether he comes in or doesn’t come in will be based around where we think he’s at with his preparation. Ideally he would have played another game of footy at SANFL level. Unfortunately that wasn’t available to us.
“We’ll review all of that as we go through the week and know when we get to the end of the week when we see how he goes with training.”
