AT LEAST five Victorian clubs have expressed interest in extracting Port Adelaide midfielder Ollie Wines out of Alberton as he and his management continue negotiations with the club over his next contract.
Wines, 21, last week underlined his value to Port by winning the best under-21 player for the third time in succession at the John Cahill Medal count despite being restricted to just 13 games in 2015 because of injury. His season finished in August after shoulder surgery.
Wines is contracted until the end of 2016 but the club wants to lock him away to remove the potential distraction of speculation over his future.
Before his injury, he had been a model of consistency and one of the strongest-bodied young players in the competition.
Wines’s agent, Nick Gieschen of Elite Sports Properties, has been busy fielding calls from the Victorian clubs, whose main sales pitch has been that he would be closer to hometown Echuca if he played in the Victorian capital.
But sources and leading player managers say Wines is most likely to ink his signature on another contract with Port Adelaide, a club that has impressed his family with its care for Wines and led to Wines’ mother Jane to call the Power “football heaven”.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/teams/port-adelaide/victorian-clubs-want-port-adelaide-star-ollie-wines/news-story/42c64fce4d02a82037e19de27a2d527b
