Only one man can save Port Adelaide - and it is up to Ken Hinkley to be that man
PORT Adelaide is a middle-of-the-table AFL team - and Hall of Fame Legend Malcolm Blight says it is up to Ken Hinkley to change this for next season.
KEN Hinkley walked off Adelaide Oval on Friday night with a powerful, purposeful stride that suggested you would not have wanted to get in the way of the Port Adelaide coach.
And that is how it should be from here.
No-one and nothing should stand in the way of Ken Hinkley.
And he should not put anything in front of his mission (and the club’s real goal) to deliver on-field success at an AFL club that - since Hinkley arrived in October 2012 - has negotiated many off-field challenges to find its long-term future.
It’s up to you Ken. It’s up to you.
Port Adelaide’s season will heavily reflect on the team’s fall from an 11-4 win-loss count - and equal-second standing on the AFL ladder - to win just one of the last seven home-and-away matches to finish 10th.
As Hinkley said on Friday night: Everyone knows what happened. Now the task is to understand why - and to make sure it does not happen next season.
REVIEW
HINKLEY says Port Adelaide will take time to work through the “why” question. The Power certainly has plenty of time with an early finish to a season that was to have run deep into September.
The review should not be difficult. One of the major notes from Port Adelaide’s fall from finalist to also-ran this season is the collapse in scoring, from a 98-point average last season to 81 this year after the Power had made efficiency and productivity in attack a key focus.
So it is time for some cold, hard and unemotional analysis in this space. And in this video and computer age, a review of Port Adelaide’s scoring methods is simpler than ever.
Before there is any discussion on how the Power plays next year, Hinkley and his new coaching staff must look at what happened in hitting the forward-50 arc this season.
Hinkley and his staff must analyse every inside-50 entry. Every kick inside-50 too. All of them.
There is no escaping the disposal issue at Alberton. It is one of the three major pointers to a team’s form - disposal efficiency, contested possessions and pressure acts. In all three categories, Port Adelaide ranks 10th or worse. No surprise then that the greatest indicator in the game - the premiership ladder - has had the Power as a mid-table team for the past four years, ninth, 10th, seventh and 10th again.
There will questions about the skill coaching at Alberton. Here is a thought to the Port Adelaide players who are holidays for the next eight weeks. Take some personal responsibility across the next two months to improve your kicking. Guess what? Your career rests on it.
COACH
HINKLEY took charge of a team that won three games in 2011 and five in 2012. He has a 57 per cent winning record in his six seasons at the Power. Good, but not great.
Hinkley is much admired for embracing the Port Adelaide Football Club’s needs beyond football to grow its membership and sponsorship base. He has given plenty in that space for six years. But now he has to make his mark as a coach rather than a club ambassador.
It’s up to you Ken.
CAPTAIN
THIS is not an issue. Travis Boak should continue as skipper.
This is not a debate Port Adelaide needs now, just as vice-captain Ollie Wines does not need to take on the responsibility of being captain just yet. He needs to focus on delivering more than grunt in the Power midfield.
PLAYING LIST
PORT Adelaide will not find that magical piece for its jigsaw puzzle in the trade period or the draft. The improvement must come from within.
In defence, Port Adelaide is young - and solid. Regaining Hamish Hartlett and Matthew Broadbent from the injury list would answer the need for better users of the ball in this part of the field.
In the midfield, the Power has grunt. But it needs more class and more speed. This is where Chad Wingard needs to regularly play. And Wines and Sam Powell-Pepper have to be more than bulls in this midfield - they must get the ball and do something with it. They cannot, as I had to remind Garry Hocking and Mark Ricciuto, just keep running into people.
In attack, the time has come for Robbie Gray to become a permanent forward. He can create goals. And he appears as the only Port Adelaide player capable of regularly delivering five goals in a match.
THE RECRUITS
STEVEN Motlop has added something, even if it is not a consistent gain.
Tom Rockliff needs to be physically sound to be an important part of the team.
All the others have a long way to go to repay Port Adelaide for the faith Ken Hinkley has carried in them.
GAME PLAN
PORT Adelaide is not - definitely is not - a soft team.
But the slow game the Power falls into repeatedly is part of the team’s failing. Easy kicks in the back half of the field amount to nothing. Taking easy options does not win games.
NEEDS
PACE and dare in that midfield. Defenders Riley Bonner and Darcy Bryne-Jones might be the outside midfielders Port Adelaide needs - particularly if Jared Polec moves to North Melbourne - to add some speed and adventure to the Power midfield.
WHAT NEXT?
PORT Adelaide will remain a middle-order team unless something changes.
And that change has to start with Hinkley. He is the man who must control that change. It’s up to you Ken.