Port Adelaide Power coach Ken Hinkley and star Chad Wingard address the press following their side's win over Fremantle.
Port Adelaide's 2013 best and fairest. Chad Wingard. Source: News Limited
CHRIS Judd chose not to read the accolades that came with his first 50 AFL games — and the Brownlow Medal he wore after just 67 matches. Chad Wingard is simply not interested.
"That's where he keeps his clarity ... he is not absorbed by the suffocating world of AFL," says Port Adelaide premiership captain Warren Tredrea. "And as long as he can keep himself mentally fresh, the world is his oyster."
Wingard's 50th AFL game — a best-afield, five-goal return against Fremantle at Adelaide Oval on Saturday — is marked with reviews declaring he has made perhaps the best start to a Power player's career but possibly played the best first 50 games in the VFL-AFL.
WINGARD ALIVE IN WINNING TIME
Haydn Bunton senior, who won two Brownlow Medals before his 50th VFL game at Fitzroy, and John Coleman, who cracked the ton twice before his 50th at Essendon, probably have Wingard covered on the best 50 of all-time.
PRINCE OF POWER: CHAD WINGARD
But the debate does change if the field is restricted to the young guns who have emerged as the game's stars since the VFL expanded to a national AFL with the advent of the Crows in 1991.
Tredrea was the last wunderkind at Alberton. A member of the Power's inaugural AFL squad in 1997, Tredrea gained national attention in just his eighth AFL game when he was 19. His 17 marks, 8.4 and dislocated kneecap at Princes Park in the Power's 89-point win against Carlton on May 8, 1998 marked the arrival of a super star.
Chad Wingard marks against the Cats in Round 6. Picture Simon Cross Source: News Corp Australia
Tredrea was still developing his body when he tormented the Carlton defence. There had been other South Australians who had made their first 50 VFL games draw rave reviews at Princes Park, but Stephen Kernahan and Craig Bradley arrived with maturity in body and mind after serving the 100-game apprenticeship in the SANFL.
"Chad's still not in a man's body ... but he plays like a mature recruit," notes Tredrea. "His hand-to-foot speed under pressure is as good as I've ever seen."
Wingard already has All-Australian honours, earned in his second AFL season. At 20, he last year claimed the Port Adelaide best-and-fairest title — the youngest at Alberton since Bradley's triumph in 1982.
"He is a jet ... and he could go down as one of the greats of SA football," Tredrea said. "It is all up to him. He has the talent — and now he has to keep going."
Geelong and North Melbourne premiership forward Cam Mooney watched Wingard from the boundary on Saturday as a Fox Footy Channel commentator and notes: "Everytime the ball is in Port Adelaide's forward line Chad Wingard can do something special for his team. Those type of players do not come along very often."
Power coach Ken Hinkley has worked with some of the game's greatest young talent during his long tenure as an assistant coach — from Brownlow Medallist Gary Ablett at Geelong to Gold Coast, Joel Selwood and Steve Johnson at Kardinia Park and the prime draftees gathered by the Suns in Gold Coast's inaugural squad.
"Chad's a great player who's going to get better, I know he's going to get better — that's a given," he said. "I've been around some really talented players in my time and that's great that I've been able to experience that, only thing I will say is that if you drop off you won't get where you want to go.
"Chad won't drop off."
Chad Wingard in his 50th game. PIC SARAH REED. Source: News Corp Australia
And Hinkley will not let Wingard rest on his laurels in his next 50 games — nor rest at all. When Wingard sought to find refuge on the interchange bench in the third term on Saturday after kicking a goal, Hinkley sent him back to the field.
"He was exhausted, but I told Chad to suck it up and get back out there," Hinkley said reaffirming he does not play favourites at Alberton.
"One of Chad's great strengths is he can show his exhaustion pretty easily and the world can see it. Sometimes Chad has to learn to go harder and to go again. So I sent him back out there. He was a little upset for a moment."
Within the Power player group Wingard has gained respect for not putting himself above the team — and the team's needs and goals.
"Chad is a special player.," said Port defender-ruckman Jackson Trengove. "But he also is such a humble player. He always just wants to do what was asked of him whether that is to kick goals or put on defensive pressure he does. That is the impressive thing about him, it is not about Chad Wingard.
Brad Ebert, John McCarthy, Jarrad Redden and Chad Wingard celebrate a win in 2012. Source: News Limited
"If you ask him he is all about the team and what he can do to help us win. It is all about that winning feeling not individual things you get."
Football has a cruel graveyard of 50-game sensations whose stars burn out quickly. Gilbert McAdam at St Kilda. Allen Jakovich at Melbourne.
Wingard seems primed to make a stronger impression in his second 50 AFL games, if only by his preference to avoid the limelight, as Tredrea has noticed.
The opportunist forward — who still could emerge as a significant midfielder in the Power's deep-running engine — has a telling knack of imposing himself on a game when defenders think they can draw breath again. Wingard's second halves — in particular in the second Showdown last season and his four goals against the Dockers on Saturday — leave the impression of the Murray Bridge-Sturt recruit teasing the moment in a game.
"No, I don't think I wait for the moment," Wingard said. "I am trying to do whatever I can 100 per cent of the time — I'm not trying to slack off when the game is over. I am really trying 100 per cent of the time.
"There is always a moment when I can make a spoil or a tackle. But the whole team is doing that, not just me."
