Ollie Wines grew up in Echuca, a Victorian town located on the iconic Murray River.
He has been surrounded by speed boats, jet skis and extreme water sports from the time he could almost walk.
Whenever Wines is afforded a break from the football schedule, he heads home to Echuca and gets straight behind the family speed boat and straps his ankles into a wake board.
One look at Wines Instagram account and you’ll see he’s very, very good and more than comfortable with this extreme sport. Wines can perform backflips and jumps that see him sail 6 feet in the air and clear the wake with ease.
He is clearly a risk taker, for when he isn’t wake boarding, his is behind the controls of a small aircraft learning to be a pilot.
Wines often hosted his Port Adelaide teammates during footy holidays with most loving their time on the river.
Wake boarding is risky. A quick Google search will tell you that one of the most common injuries associated with the sport are ACL tears of the knee, a complete disaster if you are a full-time professional AFL player.
Wines signed a new four-year contract to stay at Alberton last year, and no doubt a clause in that contract, and every AFL player’s contract for that matter says that extreme sports are prohibited.
Wake boarding, snow skiing, water skiing and mountain bike riding are clearly out. Players also jump on motor bikes at their own risk, knowing any injury occurred could afford their employer to tear up that individual contract.
But Wines’ situation is different, his love of wake boarding was no secret at Port Adelaide and he participated with the club’s blessing.
However, Wines was missing from Power training on Friday and granted leave from Port to attend a friend’s wedding back home. And with only 54 days until Port take the field for Round 1, Wines then jumped behind the boat like he had done thousands of times before.
Yet this time he fell awkwardly and injured his shoulder.
Ollie Wines will undergo scans this week after suffering a shoulder injury.
— Port Adelaide FC (@PAFC) January 27, 2019
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If that shoulder is dislocated, like I’m hearing, he will need to get it operated on and is likely to be sidelined for at least three months meaning he will miss a fair chunk of the start of the season.
The man Port were set to announce captain has let his team down and badly. It won’t cost him the captaincy, but it is an embarrassing situation for the club’s highest paid player.
There’s plenty of time to ski when you retire or on your 10-week holiday in November. Not when there’s 54 days until Round 1 with your club under extreme pressure to perform in 2019.
Port Adelaide’s multi-million dollar man has made a terrible mistake.