Inside story: How the Power secured both master and apprentice
While a new deal for Ken Hinkley seemed clear to come when the Power won 13 straight, the future of Josh Carr was not as certain. Jay Clark reveals how Port kept both master and apprentice.
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The news alert took many by surprise.
Josh Carr had decided to stay at Port Adelaide and would not be part of the Richmond senior coaching process.
Only weeks earlier, Carr was seen as a frontrunner and the hot tip to replace Damien Hardwick at Richmond.
It was a dream job, at Punt Rd. Big club, big-name players, and a big bank balance behind it.
And as Port Adelaide began to rack up the wins throughout the mid-part of this season, it became clear Ken Hinkley was going to be re-signed at Alberton.
The grandfather from Camperdown was clearly still at the peak of his coaching powers, despite a horror fixture to start the season and the bombshell “untenable” call from club great Warren Tredrea after the round 3 loss to Adelaide in the Showdown.
Hinkley, 56, was the most under-pressure figure in the game heading into 2023.
But the decision to move down from the coaches box to the interchange bench for the round 4 win over the Sydney Swans has been pivotal in what has been one of the stories of the season.
The interchange bench decision was, in part, to help play to Hinkley’s strengths. He has always had great connections with the players.
And when Aliir Aliir thumped the Sherrin back into play to deny Oliver Florent a match winning goal on the siren in a frenetic finish against the Sydney Swans, it kickstarted the remarkable run of 13-straight wins which would eventually convince the club’s strategic football committee to recommend an extension of two more seasons.
Late last year, Hinkley had the opportunity to bail out.
Essendon had put the feelers out for Hinkley when it was unclear whether former AFL football manager Brad Scott was keen to return to the coaching ranks.
The Bombers wanted an experienced coach. Someone like Scott, or Alastair Clarkson, or Hinkley.
But before the Bombers could step into Hinkley’s lounge room with a five year-contract offer, he told the Bombers no thanks.
It was an honourable move.
Even without any guarantees at Port for him beyond 2023, Hinkley was all-in at the Power, and was ready to hand the keys to the engine room to four young players who he believed could take the club all the way. With a bit of luck.
And in round 10, when the Power knocked over Melbourne in an arm wrestle in the wet, Hinkley did a little rain dance on the final siren to celebrate a four-point victory.
Port was down at the final change, but triumphed on the back of the best game of Zak Butters’ life.
That is when the wheel really turned on Hinkley’s future.
Port Adelaide had a ready-made replacement up in the coaches box.
Not in an awkward way, but good judges knew Carr was a senior coach in the making.
The question for Chris Davies, the respected footy manager who seems destined for league headquarters, was how was he going to keep Carr in the event Hinkley was re-signed?
Davies has a great relationship with Hinkley, but equally is never backwards challenging ideas or stepping in with a different viewpoint. He can handle tough conversations in a no-fuss kind of way.
And when the Richmond talk started to fire up about Carr in July, it looked like Port could lose the master’s apprentice.
But the club was strong on one thing.
The Power were not prepared to enter a formal succession plan similar to the one which blew up at Collingwood, in a way, for Nathan Buckley and Michael Malthouse.
There would be no deadline on a handover; no plank for Hinkley to walk in 2025.
Regardless, Davies had begun to work his miracle.
In recent weeks, the footy boss’ talks with Carr had begun to bear fruit, at the same time as the cogs started to turn on Hinkley’s situation.
Carr, 43, has a young family with four children.
In his playing career, Carr had already moved from Port Adelaide (105 games) to Fremantle (83 games) and back to Port Adelaide (another 19 games) across 2000-2010.
As an assistant coach, he did the same again. Started at Port Adelaide (2011-2015) and the SANFL (2016-2019) and then to Freo (2020-2022) under Justin Longmuir.
Then late last year, he returned to Port, once more.
It was a lot of back and forth with a car full of kids. Kids who had settled back into Adelaide schools.
So nine months after returning to the Power, his family was a strong consideration when discussions began on whether he would put his hand up for the Richmond gig.
And, at the same time, Davies was selling the attractions of staying at Port.
Carr was the midfield coach, and had been lauded by Hinkley and others for his work handling and guiding Connor Rozee, Butters, Jason Horne-Francis and Miles Bergman.
Carr was tight with his young midfield crew, and they were knocking over some of the most fancied engine rooms in the game as they rattled through the mid-part of the season.
At the weekend, Port had the third-youngest team of the round as it belted GWS Giants by 51 points.
So with Carr’s family well-settled and the onball unit looking like the kind of midfield brigade which could help keep the team at the top for the next five or so years, Carr saw the upside in a decision to stay.
And while there is no formal deadline or time line on a handover, it is obvious Carr will be the natural replacement option whenever Hinkley is done.
Some things just don’t need to be marked in concrete.
Especially while Carr is still building his skillset as a coach under Hinkley anyway, in the same vein as Michael Voss.
So in the past couple of weeks, Carr got his head around the decision to stay at Port.
And the Richmond job wasn’t something that really ever seriously entered Hinkley’s mindset either.
Even last week when the rumours circulated that the Tigers reached out to Hinkley’s manager, Peter Blucher, to establish his intentions, the senior coach didn’t entertain anything else but inking a fresh deal done at Port.
The club always said it was August that it would begin to deal with Hinkley’s future.
They decided on August because they knew how tough the start of the season was.
And even when Tredrea said Hinkley’s position was untenable three weeks into the season, no one at Port flinched.
There were no crisis meetings held, no back-stabbing, no one got jumpy. Not even president David Koch, who had put Hinkley under the pump more than a few times over the journey with his breakfast telly comments.
This time, Hinkley felt the support of his club at the most difficult time following the Showdown loss.
And after moving down to the boundary the next week, Hinkley began turning the ship around with the help of Aliir’s miracle on the last line against Sydney.
It meant the Power were 2-2, and then 3-2 the following week when they ran over the Bulldogs, kicking the last four goals of the game.
Fast forward to the first week of August and Davies and Hinkley began to talk turkey. The new deal was two years. Roughly the same money.
Both parties were keen to continue together, as obvious as it all seemed at that point as Port Adelaide sat inside the top-four. They were title contenders.
So, once Hinkley said he wanted to keep the clipboard, and Carr was on board, too, Davies went to the strategic football committee to form a recommendation.
‘We’re keeping Ken’.
That recommendation was presented to the board, which discussed and ratified a two-year extension.
It was the best of both worlds.
The new deal locked away Hinkley, helps keep the club in a mode to contend, and safeguarded Carr.
Equally importantly, the players were happy.
Port thought it was a successful plan, rather than a succession plan.
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