The debate about Ken Hinkley threatens to damage Port Adelaide long after he stays or goes as coach. Photo: GETTY IMAGES
When the vultures start circling an AFL coach under pressure, there’s a momentum which builds until either a seemingly inevitable breaking point, or far less frequently, the turning back of a tide.
Ken Hinkley has been able to hold back the forces of football nature more than once over his dozen years in charge of Port Adelaide. This time, however, it appears increasingly that resistance is futile.
It’s hard to remember a coach with as many interested parties gunning for him and as many factors going against him as Hinkley has right now.
Indeed, Port Adelaide’s 79-point loss to Brisbane, the Power’s heaviest defeat at Adelaide Oval against anyone bar Showdown rival the Crows, could prove one of the ultimate “coach killers”, a listless stinker of a performance coming at the worst possible moment, as the club hosted a tribute to its 2004 AFL premiership heroes, the team wearing the old-style Power guernseys for the day, just to add some rancid cream to the cake of shame.
There was already no shortage of Port fans after Hinkley’s head. But the clincher in Hinkley’s demise might simply be history. No other first-time coach has lasted even 10 full seasons without having won a premiership. Hinkley is in his 12th season. And his summit thus far has been three preliminary finals.
Right now, you can probably write your own ticket on the prospect of him surviving past the end of this year, despite being contracted until the end of 2025. And yet …
No, I’m not about to argue passionately for Hinkley’s retention. What I do think, though, is that Port Adelaide’s decision on its future has become so ridiculously polarised that it’s endangering the club regardless of whether the coach in 2025 is Hinkley, Josh Carr, Nathan Buckley, or the ghost of Fos Williams.
On X on Monday, journalist Vince Rugari posted: “I don’t recall a more binary discussion around an AFL coach ever. If you want him sacked, you are part of the mob, you are mindless, torch and pitchfork. If you don’t, you are protecting him, you’re his mate. Bit weird is it not?”
I tend to agree, except for “weird”. I’d argue it’s more typical of a historically successful (locally) club with a passionate supporter base but consequently, one in which former players exert a disproportionate influence. And example A? Kane Cornes and Warren Tredrea.
AFL football’s goldfish bowl continues to shrink to the point virtually everyone concerned has some sort of conflict of interest.
And on Monday night, when Port director Tredrea, a well-known Hinkley critic, on radio publicly disagreed with football manager Chris Davies’ comments about the list perhaps not being good enough, then failed to pull up a scathing talkback caller who’d called the coach a “con artist”, they were everywhere.
Tredrea was then savaged by the “Footy Classified” panel, of which Cornes is a member, the Port premiership player pointing out that Tredrea was close to would-be coach Carr and list manager Jason Cripps.
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What Cornes, who in contrast has ritually defended Hinkley, failed to acknowledge here, was that his brother Chad is an assistant coach to Hinkley. And so on and so on.
The saddest part of all this squabbling, sniping and self-interest, is the damage it could do Port whatever the upshot.
Hinkley has taken such a battering now that even if he survives, it will feel like a political party leader narrowly defeating a challenge but clearly on borrowed time until the next. And the alternative?
Well, if Port truly is interested in looking beyond the seemingly-anointed Carr, what potential candidate wouldn’t be eyeing the current scenario and wondering how on earth they’d survive the likes of Tredrea, Cornes and the ravenous Port supporter base the moment things got bumpy?
As Rugari posted, few discussions about a coach’s future have ever been framed in such a black-and-white (pardon the pun) manner. And no, I don’t think the answer is that simple.
Is Port Adelaide actually that talented a team? The most successful indicators for the Power last year were territory and offence (third for points scored) but their defensive and midfield numbers were mediocre.
This season, the offensive and territory game has slipped badly, the recruitment of Esava Ratugolea and Brandon Zerk-Thatcher has failed to stiffen the backline, and for all the fuss about Horne-Francis, Rozee, Butters and co., the midfield numbers are still poor.
Somehow, Port most seasons under Hinkley continues to eke out enough victories to at least get to September, where it then falls short (five losses from the last seven finals appearances). Can’t you argue that is a coach squeezing the absolute best out of a group just as easily as the case that this is a list which should be doing better?
I think the history argument is compelling were Port to cut ties with Hinkley this year. But stability might also be an underrated commodity in AFL football.
Ask North Melbourne, for whom Brad Scott was another flag-less coach cut adrift in his 10th season, but which perhaps is only now starting to recover from a tumultuous five-year period taking in several difference coaches and countless crushing defeats.
Changing a coach is a massive decision, one never quite as simple as the baying hordes on social media or assorted media megaphones make out, and one made even more complex when there’s all sorts of agendas at play.
Port Adelaide might be desperate for a win, but the necessity for cool heads focused on the bigger picture is if anything even more important. And right now, that appears even further from the case than the Power is from some decent form.
This article first appeared at ESPN.
