Port Adelaide’s Ken Hinkley is one of just 14 men to have coached at least 125 wins in the AFL era. Photo: GETTY IMAGES
There’s once again a rising tide of Essendon zealots pining for the return of their exiled, golden-haired prince who took refuge in France while their club burned.
And with the club still burning, James Hird is somehow a favourite to again take command of the Bomber cockpit despite his complicated past and largely threadbare coaching resume.
But it’s a 55-year-old bald man currently working in suburban Adelaide who’s far better credentialed to first put out the flames at Tullamarine, and then set in place a clearer runway for this decorated club to take flight.
If Essendon is serious about again becoming an AFL force, the Bombers will resist their fairytale fixations and think seriously about making a play for Port Adelaide’s Ken Hinkley.
In the AFL era, which is now 33 seasons old, Ken Hinkley is one of just 14 individuals to have won at least 125 matches as coach, and would probably have won a heap more had he not been criminally overlooked for a handful of jobs prior to his 2012 Port Adelaide appointment.
Of those 14 coaches to have won 125 matches since 1990, 13 have at minimum participated in a grand final parade, with 11 of those walking away with at least one premiership.
And while Hinkley is the exception, so far unable to break through the preliminary final barrier on three occasions, his overall home and away win percentage actually ranks fifth among that highly-distinguished group, with a flag the only thing separating him from being considered as one of the absolute finest coaches of the modern game.
Just as Essendon is now, Port was an unmitigated mess when Hinkley arrived at Alberton. The board was in turmoil, tarpaulin was being used to mask their minuscule crowds, and the club was enduring five straight seasons of September absenteeism. In the two seasons prior to Hinkley’s arrival, they’d won just eight of their 44 games.
Within 12 months, Hinkley had the Power in a semi-final and a season later they were just a kick shy of a grand final appearance.
In his 10 seasons as Port coach, Hinkley has produced double digit wins in each and every campaign and has never once seen his team finish with a percentage below 100.
Unlike Hird and unlike nearly every other candidate who’ll put their hand up for the Essendon gig, (Ross Lyon an exception), Hinkley has 20 years of AFL coaching experience, first serving as Mark Thompson’s right hand man at Geelong and as the Cats were completely electrifying the league en route to a hat-trick of grand final appearances and a couple of flags.
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He then served as an assistant at Gold Coast upon the club entering the league, before finally securing his very overdue role at Port Adelaide.
When he landed at Port, there was just a single All Australian on the list (a 30-year old Kane Cornes) and no-one who’d even been within a whiff of Rising Star award contention.
In his subsequent decade of work, he’s helped develop an enviable list where the likes of Travis Boak and Robbie Gray developed into stars of the game, and where Ollie Wines was recently crowned a Brownlow medallist.
He’s helped kick-start the extremely promising careers of Connor Rozee and Todd Marshall while he’s also embraced the rookie draft, fishing out a captain from those waters (Tom Jonas) while also overseeing Dan Houston’s development into one of the club’s most important midfielders.
Should he somehow be installed as Bomber coach, he’d be inheriting a significantly better list than he started with at Port, with the Bombers already bursting with young talent, harbouring no fewer than a dozen top-20 drafted players, many of whom have already blossomed into fine AFL footballers.
At Port, Hinkley has worked brilliantly with his list management crew, sending out teams that are capable of winning both now into the future. Even this season, and mired at 0-5, Hinkley could have thrown in the towel, yet hung tough, galvanising the group and finishing the season on a 10-7 run, Port winding up with the league’s fifth best defence while winning its last couple of games by a combined 140 points.
If the Bombers can for a moment block out all the noise, take a deep breath and imagine what industry respect and relevance looks like, Ken Hinkley’s face ought to emerge. If, however, they remain trapped in their aspirational delusions, Hird will be the only face they continue to see.
Hinkley is an exceptional AFL coach with a proven track record of lifting woebegone clubs just like Essendon off the mat and moulding them into premiership contenders. He’d inherit a list that played finals only 12 months ago, and whom, like Collingwood, could absolutely fly up the ladder as soon as next season.
Over the next few days and weeks, Essendon will sort through a heap of well-respected, promising assistants such as Adem Yze and Daniel Giansiracusa, who will have as much experience as the recently-deposed Ben Rutten. Hird’s resume might well be among the pile, too.
Yet none will come even remotely close to what Ken Hinkley can offer.
