Port Adelaide has turned to an unlikely Hollywood blockbuster to find a theme it hopes will carry the club to its first AFL premiership in nearly two decades.
Speaking on SEN radio, Ryan Burton revealed the theme for their finals campaign is Oppenheimer.
The three-hour Christopher Nolan film tells the story of J Robert Oppenheimer, who led the US military’s Manhattan Project during World War II, which developed the atomic bombs that eventually devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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While Burton didn’t elaborate, SEN Sportsday host and Port Adelaide great Kane Cornes was able to squeeze more details on what that meant from midfielder Ollie Wines.
“It’s a little bit about just how much work goes into something,” Wines said.
“In the movie, it was (the work) to go into the atomic bomb that ended World War II.
“So many people have to come together and work hard for a number of years, this finals campaign isn’t something that’s just been building for this year, it’s probably been the last four years where we have reached two (preliminary) finals, we’re continuing to grow.”
But Wines, who played all 23 games for the Power in 2023, admitted the theme has already hit its first hurdle – they didn’t go to see the movie as a team, and so some players haven’t seen it and have been left “scratching their heads”.
“But I guess the general grasp of it is so many people have to come together and work hard to reach a common goal, which hopefully for us is a premiership.”
Wines said with a laugh the theme wasn’t about “blowing the competition away”.
“It’s more so about the journey to get there and what it takes to get that finished product.”
Port Adelaide’s finals campaign will get underway against Brisbane on Saturday night.
They haven’t met since their round one clash at the Adelaide Oval, when the Power thumped the Lions by 54 points.