Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley is comfy with the in-vogue AFL mantra: pace kills.
And he says his facet is as effectively stocked as ever in regard to the fashionable sport’s emphasis on pace because it approaches season 2023.
“Last year got an acknowledgment that it (the game) got a bit quicker,” Hinkley advised AAP.
“We have never been a side that has been slow so I don’t think that was something that we spent too much time on.
“Every facet every now and then sometimes goes a bit backwards and forwards and goes nowhere.
“But I think the competition last year, the premiers (Geelong) showed that they made a significant change, went forward with the ball more, took the game on a little bit more.
“But once more, that has most likely been a little bit of a power of ours.”
Hinkley is also content that size doesn’t matter – as much as system.
Port’s backline repeatedly gets knocked as undersized with Aliir Aliir, at 196cm, the tallest of the club’s key defensive stocks including captain Tom Jonas (188cm), Trent McKenzie (191cm) and Tom Clurey (193cm).
“We have been nice for the final 10 years,” Hinkley mentioned of Port’s defence.
“If you look by way of the numbers, the bottom we’ve most likely been ranked in factors in opposition to in my time is both six or seventh in 10 years.
“So we’re solid. We’re a really strong defensive team, we have got good behaviours, we don’t rely on natural size.
“But among the (opposition) forwards are getting greater by the day virtually, they’re 200cm plus … the youthful youngsters which can be coming by way of now, they really virtually begin at 200cm, it looks like.
“So we are challenging our blokes to match-up on them at times but we think systematically we can withstand that.”
Hinkley has been much less happy with Port’s polish: changing attacking forays into objectives.
Last yr when lacking the finals, the Power averaged 53 entries a sport into their attacking 50m for a median return of 11.9 objectives.
“That ability to finish when you go inside forward 50 – the premiership team last year, they had an incredible forward line,” Hinkley mentioned.
“They had three really big pieces – (Tom) Hawkins, (Jeremy) Cameron and (Tyson) Stengle – that kicked a lot of goals, that is the quality of people in front of the ball.
“We’re constructing in that space. We knew and acknowledged that we had some shortfall in our small forwards.”
Hinkley hoped that void can be stuffed by recruiting Junior Rioli from West Coast and Francis Evans from Geelong, and the return of Orazio Fantasia who did not play an AFL sport final yr as a result of harm.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
