Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley has been right here earlier than: his head on the proverbial chopping block.
Hinkley, getting into his eleventh season as Power coach, is out of contract at season’s finish.
And he holds an undesirable document, for many AFL video games coached with out making a grand closing – 223.
So the straight-shooting Hinkley nicely is aware of the strain.
“I have felt this and witnessed this … three times in my 10-year journey,” Hinkley informed AAP.
“Every time you get close to coming out of contract or every time you don’t achieve a premiership, never made a grand final – all the narrative people talk around is real.
“But now we have bought a superb footy membership. We have gotten a superb cultured footy membership.
“We understand it’s a performance industry. And we will deal with that (his future) at the right time as good footy clubs will.
“We will get by way of to the tip of the season and assess what has gone with out leaping at shadows.”
Hinkley and Port hierarchy have put on hold any contract talks until August.
“We’re all dedicated to that. You will not discover a weak spot in us,” he said.
Hinkley has led Port to the finals five times – three times, they’ve lost preliminary finals.
Within Port’s supporter base, agitators have been calling for his sacking for years. Yet he gets erroneously linked with every head coaching vacancy at other clubs.
Why the contradiction?
“I can not actually reply that query, it is a tough one,” he mentioned.
“But the truth is … I like being part of the Port Adelaide Football Club, have at all times beloved being part of the Port Adelaide Football Club and need to proceed to be part of it, that’s my final objective.
“That will come with performance and that performance will be seen by everyone.
” … It will likely be what the scoreboard tells you, will probably be what the ladder tells you. There’s some fairly apparent measures.”
By those measures Port, beset by injuries to key players and five consecutive losses to open their season, failed last year when missing the playoffs after being beaten preliminary finalists in 2020 and 2021.
But Hinkley is bullish about a quick bounce this season.
“This is pretty much as good an inventory as now we have had in my time,” he said.
Port’s off-season gains include South Australian-born Jason Horne-Francis, the No.1 draft pick from 2021 who walked out of North Melbourne after one tumultuous season when his attitude was questioned.
“The scrutiny and the behaviour that some folks understand that went on final yr, I can not stand in judgement of any of that,” Hinkley mentioned.
“All I can discuss round is what I see. And that may be a actually devoted, linked particular person to the group who’s loving being round his household.”
Former West Coast forward Junior Rioli arrived as part of a trade centred on Horne-Francis which involved four clubs and more than a dozen draft picks.
Gifted goalsneak Orazio Fantasia, who didn’t play an AFL game last season because of injury, has had what Hinkley described as “a reasonably secure pre-season”.
First-choice ruckman Scott Lycett, who played just four games in 2022 because a shoulder reconstruction was followed by infection, is in good nick, as is key forward Charlie Dixon, restricted by injury to a dozen games last year.
“You want a little bit of luck within the recreation … you retain your greatest gamers on the park and so they get continuity and so they get higher and so they get some confidence going,” Hinkley mentioned.
“We must make our luck although and that’s what we are going to attempt to do.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
