PORT ADELAIDE coach Ken Hinkley has confirmed vice captain Ollie Wines will play against Fremantle on Sunday in place of the injured Ryan Burton.
Wines hasn’t played since Round 23, 2019, co-incidentally against the Dockers, after dislocating his shoulder at training in January.
Speaking at Alberton Oval as the side prepared to depart Adelaide for the hub on the Gold Coast, Hinkley said it was an easy decision after Wines put in a best on ground performance in a trial game against Adelaide last weekend.
“Ollie will come into the side and play, which is really good,” he said.
“He’s a fantastic player for us. He makes us better.
“He was really good. He did what we expected him to do, as he’d done through the second pre-season of training. He’d been really really dominant at training but we hadn’t seen him play.
“It was an easy decision for us. He gets to play a game of football, he was in good form, he’s our vice-captain and he comes back into our team.”
Burton’s absence means Dan Houston will shift back into defence, where he has played much of his football prior to a shift into the midfield this season.
“It’s pretty obvious for us. We’re not going to expose someone who doesn’t have any defensive awareness,” Hinkley explained.
“Dan’s basically played his whole career, bar this year as a defender. It’s a pretty simple move for us and I’m sure even Fremantle won’t be surprise by that.”
The Dockers remain winless after two rounds but have been very competitive in losses to Essendon (by six points in Round 1) and Brisbane (by 12 points in Round 2).
Hinkley said it wasn’t hard to get his side to refocus after its big win over Adelaide in Showdown 48 because the players are keen to build some momentum.
“We know what we’ve got to do and we know how hard the competition is,” Hinkley said.
“We’ve got another reminder last night when we saw Hawthorn get absolutely belted the week before and then they came out and did the same to Richmond.
“The competition is so tough and hard, we can never take anything for granted so we’ve got to be at our absolute best for Fremantle.
“They’ve been really good, they’ve been really strong.
“They’ve obviously got a new coach and they’ve certainly got some high class midfielders – particularly (Nat) Fyfe, he’s a great player and (Michael) Walters, who has caused us some grief over the journey – so we know nothing short of our best will beat them.”
Speaking of Nat Fyfe, Hinkley laughed off a suggestion from Connor Rozee that he would like to go head-to-head with Fyfe on Sunday evening.
“He must have been delusional, I’m sure he didn’t mean that,” Hinkley laughed.
“Nobody would want to go head to head with Nat Fyfe, he’s a very very good player.
“All our midfielders will go against all of their midfielders. It’s not player v player, it’s midfield v midfield, it’s team v team.”
Port Adelaide will arrive on the Gold Coast this evening and hold a captain’s run training session tomorrow ahead of Sunday’s encounter with Fremantle, starting at 6:10pm AEST / 5:40pm ACST.
