Two-faced 'supporters' need to calm down about Ken Hinkley - but Port should still have a Plan B (2024)

You can’t help but feel sorry for Ken Hinkley.

What the man has gone through over the past few weeks typifies the sad reality of modern-day sport, with Port Adelaide as a club and its most vocal fans seemingly operating under two completely different timelines and sets of expectations.

The old footy cliche that ‘we’re rebuilding on a five-year plan’ from coaches often does not align with the fans’ demands of wanting wins every game, or ‘you need to make finals or you’re out’.

Watching fans turn on the man who helped form and shape Port Adelaide into the club it has become in the last decade has been quite disappointing to watch.

Hinkley’s record is impressive since taking over in 2013; even this year, he is still very much in the running for a seventh finals campaign in 12 seasons.

That’s the sort of consistency in making the top eight that the likes of North Melbourne, Essendon or St Kilda – to name a few rivals – could only dream of in the past two decades.

Yes, he hasn’t made a grand final, let alone won one – but if the pass mark for every coach was to make it to the last Saturday in September, then there would be an even longer list of failures in AFL/VFL – and even SANFL – history.

It’s a privilege, not a right, to play finals.

But enough of looking at the past: Port Adelaide has a very important decision to make in a matter of weeks – and it can either be done the easy way or the hard way. That is to say, with or without a succession plan should Hinkley or the Power decide the time is up.

Some want him gone at the end of this year, finals or not. In that case, the man most likely to take control of the team if he goes is tipped to be Josh Carr, the current assistant coach.

Hinkley is contracted until the end of 2025, and it would be a wise move for the Power to use every week of that contract to get the best out of any succession plan and set the side up for its next chapter.

Carr has been back at the club he played for and then worked for since 2023, but a sudden thrust into the top job in a matter of weeks is probably not going to yield any significantly different results from what Ken Hinkley has been delivering.

Recent coaching changes at other clubs have involved personnel coming into the club with fresh ideas and slightly new team tactics and game plans.

Adam Kingsley took over GWS in 2023 from Leon Cameron, taking the Giants from a 16th-placed finish into a preliminary final.

Craig McRae took over at Collingwood in 2022 after Nathan Buckley left in mid-2021. The Magpies made the top four in 2022 from 17th the previous season, then won the flag in 2023.

Look what Damien Hardwick is doing at the Suns, or Brad Scott at the Bombers. The one outlier when it comes to new coaches is Adam Yze at Richmond, but that’s a slightly different story as he has had to deal with retirements and injuries that would cripple any club.

New men coming in with fresh ideas and making changes that motivated and relit the spark in their teams saw players lift accordingly.

But Carr, although he has been in the SANFL and at Fremantle, has the disadvantage of already being in the Port Adelaide set-up, and his ability to be that fresh mind is somewhat impacted by the playing group’s familiarity with him.

It’s hard to see a Carr handover meaning much more than a different coach, similar game plan type of exchange – especially if you subscribe to the theory that the assistant is the one pulling the tactical reins in the coach’s box while Hinkley motivates the troops on the bench.

If Carr is the right man to take over, he needs to be eased into it gradually, as John Longmire did when taking over from Paul Roos at Sydney – otherwise, the club should look elsewhere.

The smart plan would be twofold: first, make 2025 a genuine succession year, where Hinkley eases out of the top job should that be the path he and the club decide to go down.

That would let Carr do most of the planning and tactical work with the team, with Hinkley giving him assistance where required.

The experienced Hinkley would still take media duties, ultimately accepting blame and somewhat shielding Carr during the learning process, allowing him to develop and learn from mistakes with a safety net.

The second important step is that the Port administration should, as a club, put the players on notice. It is easy for the blame to be dropped squarely on the coach’s shoulders, as he is one man – and it’s easier to replace one rather than many.

The potential shown by Port intermittently in 2024, and even as recent as the thrashing of top-eight contenders the Western Bulldogs in Round 17, has shown that the squad still can be a force.

There seems to be a problem with effort and attitude on the field: Hinkley cannot make an individual play harder if he doesn’t want to.

Compare this to other teams this season; until the last two rounds, sides like Sydney, Hawthorn, Fremantle and Essendon have been just finding ways to win.

It wasn’t always pretty, or following a masterful game plan, but you could see the players dig deep and fight to get the four points.

That’s the problem with Port Adelaide: their mind has not been on the job 100 per cent of the time in big matches, and while some of the blame can go to the coach for not finding that motivation, he cannot make a Hyundai i30 match it with a Lamborghini.

The midfield includes a young core of Zak Butters, Connor Rozee, and Jason Horne-Francis, all capable of being superstars of the game in the now as well as the future. But all are in the 21-24-year-old age bracket, and have a lot of development left in their careers.

With the way they have started, it’s sometimes easy to forget that they might not have the consistency that many expect… yet.

In attack, the Power just isn’t kicking a winning score, with their misfiring key forwards a big reason why.

Todd Marshall has just three games with multiple goals this year, Charlie Dixon has only 13 goals, and Jeremy Finlayson 12. That’s hardly a finals-winning forward line, especially if the whole team isn’t pulling their weight elsewhere on the field.

Players need to do better, not just the coaching staff.

To see the emotion on Hinkley’s face when he was first booed, then when he was fighting back tears after winning their next game over St Kilda, and finally cheered at the final siren of the win over the Dogs, just shows how two-faced some ‘supporters’ can be.

It’s best for everyone involved with the club to put their differences aside, unite behind Hinkley and make the rest of 2024 and 2025 either as successful as possible, or pave the way for a graceful exit for a man who has done plenty to turn the Power from the basketcase they were in the 2010s into a side with yearly expectations of playing and winning finals.

Unlike the failed Collingwood transition of Mick Malthouse to Nathan Buckley, this could work if everyone is on board – and stops the booing.